Editor’s Note: This podcast was originally published on Spotify on June 7, 2023. 

Audio Producer Melody Jones discusses the importance of child-like play as a form of both entertainment and stress-relief on campus. 

Reported, scripted and edited by Melody Jones. Production assistance by Jimmia Tabe. Supervised by Audio Editor Molly-Jo Tilton. Music by BluDot sessions. Cover Art by Ana Louisa Matzner. 

Melody Jones: Everyone knows the thrill of a middle school dodgeball match

{Sounds of dodgeball}

You line up on opposite sides of the gym floor and anxiously await your coaches signal. Their hand waves down, or a whistle blows, maybe they just yell

{countdown begins}

And then it’s off to the races. You and your fellow 5th graders swarm to the middle line, laughing in maniacal joy or nervous fear as the first foam balls go flying.  

Here at UT, the dodgeball scene isn’t much different from all those years ago. Except for well, a couple of things. First, IM dodgeball is an officiated sport. Unlike the free for all of primary gym class, players sign up to compete, and even then they’re not guaranteed a match if the opposing team doesn’t show. The friendly game among the members of Planet Longhorn you’re hearing now was a result of a no-show. Although it’s clear they’re having fun, it’s a shame they didn’t get to play as intended. 

Play isn’t as natural as it used to be when it was scheduled into our childhood lives. 

{upbeat music}

This is episode {8} of The Daily Texan’s newest audio series, The Stories of Our Halls. In this episode we’ll be exploring play. What it means to play as students and why we don’t play as often anymore. 

Bri Gaines: Sometimes I’ll talk to my mom and I’ll it’s like, whichever is more convenient. Like I’m a grown woman or I’m just a kid, you know? Like, I’m in that weird point of transitioning from childhood to adulthood where I want to be independent and autonomous, but I don’t have the exactly the means to do so. Yeah, so it’s a weird situation of being independent in mind, but dependent in reality. 

That was Bri Gaines. She’s a freshman mechanical engineering student, who enjoys spending her free time playing the popular role playing game Dungeons and Dragons. Like many students, she’s at a weird point in her life right now. Technically she could play DND whenever she wants but the question she struggles with is should she? Kirk Lynn, a playwriting professor who teaches a class on play in its relation to writing speaks on her dilemma.

Kirk Lynn: you have more agency now suddenly to study anything that you want. And at the same at the very moment, we’re giving you all that freedom. We’re also paradoxically, paradoxically, like sort of pressuring you would like and you’re going to need a job.

And Bri isn’t the only student to struggle with this paradox between work and play 

Pranav: I feel like now, there’s always some sort of pervading thing up ahead where you’re like, I can set aside this much of play for myself, but I have to go back to this general sort of life. So when I was younger, like I would participate in a lot, a lot of things like I played sports, like I learned taekwondo for a while. I took like, so many, so many music classes. And now I can still do that sort of thing. But I will say like, being an adult who has to deal with some of the tough situations in life, there’s always a sort of feeling that am I can I allow myself to have this to, to dedicate myself to this form of play? 

Emma: I feel like when you’re younger, and like, as a child, it’s like you could always play like, you could always have room to like, be silly and stuff. But like, as you get older, it’s like, there’s certain times where it’s like an on and off switch. I used to play soccer a lot, like a lot, a lot. And I’ve stopped, like, I’ve stopped a lot. Doing this with HPSA, like, forces me to get out and play? 

{music fades}

Emma: Because like, if I was to do it by myself, and I’m not on a team, I don’t really do it. So I’d say I kind of stopped playing. 

Pranav Kasturi and Emma Ortega feel the same. Outside of group settings, like playing IM dodgeball with her Hispanic Business org., Emma doesn’t play. And while Pranav’s specialty is coordinating playful events for students as chair of the Events and Entertainment Recreation Subcommittee, he still struggles to justify indulging in recreation for himself. 

Students trudge through the routine of school and work waiting for the next time we can flip on our play switch. I’m sure if you’re a student that hazy bore of busyness is hitting especially hard with finals going on. Personally I can’t wait for the next time I get to play.

But all this talk of play begs the question, what is play? Professor Kirk offers his definition.

Kirk: it helps me to think about play as the pursuit of pleasure, through improvement. And for me, that’s useful, because the idea that the center of it is trying to pursue pleasure to make yourself happy to make yourself feel good, but that’s the goal.

KRIK 5:36-5:46: And then as a counter to that there’s also improvement without pleasure, but the goal is just improvement. And frequently, that’s either just pure labor, or pure exploitation.

This notion of improvement without pleasure is where students get stuck. In college we have many new and exciting opportunities but they are equally challenging and demanding. Pair that with financial or familial pressures to perform well and we observe a body of burnt out, dissatisfied, and anxious students. There’s an atmosphere of productivity on campus that can make fun and exciting new experiences stressful.

Kirk: the purpose of play in play itself. But the definition I gave is in pursuit of pleasure. And if we try and hijack that by gamifying, into like, well, the purpose is really to get healthy, or the purpose is to improve yourself, become a better person. And I worry about that. Sometimes

 One way in which we gamify our lives is through costuming and not the traditional Halloween or party costume you may be thinking of.

Kirk: an hour before you came in to talk to me. Another professor saw me wearing my blazer and standing in the lobby and was like, Oh, you put on your professor costume. And we were joking about the degree to which we are pretending to be who we are. 

What professor Kirk describes can be boiled down to “dressing for success” a term I’m sure you’re all familiar with.  Whenever we need to be “adults” we dress like them. Bri adds that we act like them too.

Bri: you’re a different person at home than you are at school or at work, I guess you could make an argument that your work self and your work personality, you are role playing as somebody with a job or yourself with a job, you suppress aspects of your personality, and you put on a different front. That’s a little bit of acting. So yeah

Kirk: You can very quickly get lost inside the game of adulting and find that Oh, well. Now I am fully acting as an adult but I’m not enjoying it anymore. I’m not in my autonomy in choosing how I adult feels. 

In this analogy Kirk suggests that adulting is a game. But to win at adulting means to lose out on other things, like personal expression, innovation, community, and of course play. But just like any other game, you can adjust the rules of adulting to best fit your play style.

Kirk: So I knew I wanted to be a writer because I loved books. So I was writing a lot of short stories and poems, which I think should write a load and you mail off. Now you email off to people, which was incredibly lonely. And I had a really conscious decision where I said, if I wrote plays, I wouldn’t be as lonely because I would need actors and directors. I still pursue something I like writing. But I did it in a way that drove me toward more people toward community.

Sometimes that looks like changing your work environment or seeking new communities where you feel more comfortable. Other times it can mean bringing play into the environment you’re already in like Pranav does at E+E Recreation.

Pranav: this organization is like a good example of how work and play can kind of become blurred in a sort of sense. Because in meetings like we try to emphasize like having fun,  And that means that during meetings, we spend a lot of time just bouncing like crazy ideas back and forth. We have like, we have fun talking with each other. And thinking like, what would be super cool for the student body of UT to experience like, what if we had a petting zoo? 

And if making work your play doesn’t sound appealing, you can always make time for play outside of work. 

Bri: I’m so busy. I checked my schedule this morning. And I have literally no time to do anything. But scheduling out time to play d&d, which is like, it’s like scheduling self care, you know, I’m not free on Monday nights from six to 12. And I make that a firm boundary of mine

Bri compared the rules of DND to house rules in a card game of uno. Essentially DND is anything a player wants it to be. The game of adulting is no different.

Bri: it’s more like a Choose Your Own Adventure book than anything, right? I think you have the power to roleplay and improv more so than you think it’s pretty easy to get into. I think you have to find people you trust, which can be hard if you don’t have anybody who’s already into the hobby, but I think if you take the first step, then you could find it a home here.

{sounds of clattering dice, dice rolling, pencil scritches, chatter and laughter}

Bri preps her adventures by setting a scene. She brings a golden bag full of bright multi-sided dice for her and her players to use. Though digital dice may be more convenient, nothing beats the physical feel of clacking a D20 across a table to reveal a perfect role. She brings snacks. As all dnd players know, it isn’t a proper session without them. And she plays music, inviting her players into an imaginary western world where her campaign takes place.

Kirk: I talk a lot about like, play wants to invite you to turn away from the world. There’s usually an invitation, right, you can’t force somebody to play but you can invite them to like sometimes it’s ritualistic of like a detective game night. This is date night. This the theater, you know, so much of my work is making plays or making movies, the ritual of like the lights going down, or we’re going to be here at 8 can help you sort of like turn away from the world.

However you play, whether that be in a D&D campaign, a game of dodgeball,  at karaoke with friends or reading quietly at home, every mode offers an escape from your normal routine or as Kirk put it, an invitation into another way of being. Pranav reflects on E+E Recreation’s efforts to offer this sort of invitation to students.

Pranav:  we try to put on events that kind of not necessarily forced, but like shake people out of like their apathy in a sort of sense. There’s something special about kind of promoting childlike whimsy, through not just activity and specific things that you do, but also just being in a place where you can look at like silly decorations, or some of the effort we put in to try to make an event be like an immersive experience.

The fantasy and wonder Pranav promotes may seem harder to come by as students enter adult life but Professor Kirk assures there is still play to be had as long as we’re willing to find it.

Kirk: If play can invite you by helping you turn away from the world. You can also practice and turning away from the world.

Bri enters the realm of play everytime she roleplays. She suggests that people looking for play give it a try.

Bri: All kinds of play kind of require a bit of imagination in order to put yourself in that person’s shoes to suspend your sense of reality for a bit. So I think role playing is in a little bit of is an aspect that is an all play. It’s good to push your boundaries and step out of your comfort zone. That’s how you grow as a person. But once again, I understand that maybe your idea of have fun time isn’t pushing your boundaries and stepping out of your comfort zone. 

As long as they’re comfortable with doing so of course. After all, play is for having fun. We can’t force ourselves to be playful and oftentimes play comes naturally at spontaneous moments. Pranav for instance, felt especially playful just sitting in a parking lot with his friends

Pranav: I think there’s something kind of charming about spending the time the way you want it, and not being like some, like, there has to be some deep meaning in that sort of time spent. The most playful, I felt is when I wasn’t trying to be. I remember, me and my friends went to go watch a movie. It was like the Batman or something, the start of 2022. And we haven’t planned for this, but we just spent hours in the parking lot just hanging around joking, just talking afterwards. And I just remember feeling like where did the time go? That it’s now 4am. And we’ve done nothing, but you know, talk about the most useless, worthless of topics, and just let ourselves be absolutely goofy for the for the time being. And yeah, that’s, that’s a really good memory that I have.

Kirk described it best earlier on. Play is for the pursuit of pleasure. You can hijack work to make it more playful or hijack play to make it more productive, but at its heart we’re only playing when we’re having fun.

Kirk: One of the nice things about being around the kids a lot at all ages is that they play for the sake of play, like I’m just doing this because I want to be happy. 

While kids may be the experts at having fun, we adults can have fun too.

Bri: Adults play games. I think play is just another word for recreation. The word has a child to spin on it. But at its core play is just anything that you do for fun. And everybody needs fun in their lives. So there’s no point to this world if you’re not happy. I think I’m a hedonist at heart. Whatever is keeping you from trying a different form of play as an adult or playing d&d, if you just push past the barrier that’s stopping you, I promise you’ll find a community you’ll be able to get into it, and it’s a lot more fun than you think it is. But yeah, you should you should indulge your inner child. I think they never go away.

{music fades}

This has been a production of the Daily Texan Audio department, reported, edited and hosted by me, Melody Jones. Supervision from audio editor Molly-Jo Tilton. Production assistance from Jimmia Tabe. Music from Blue dot Sessions, Awaiting Lady D, Hardsider, and Allie Mine by Sugartree, and Deep Krawlan by Texana. Thank you for listening.