In last weekend, I stayed at home and enjoyed a ‘solitary play’. My hobby is to collect cards which are with pictures, especially children and lovely people are shown in these pictures. Before reading this book, I wondered whether hobbies can be classified as play or not. I figured out; it’s true that hobbies, collections, listening to music, art projects, pets, reading, yoga or crosswords can be included in the solitary play.
According to chapter 10, the rhetoric of the self is usually applied toward solitary activities, but can be characterized by other ideas such as fun, relaxation, and escape. Even though there are several multiple meanings of the self, the central focus is in the experience of the player. In other words, play as self is idealized by attention to the desirable experiences of the players. For me, I had individual’s personal freedom to choose the collection of the cards as play, it is intrinsically motivated. It is also true that this subjective play experience is fun to me. Additionally, I realized that sometimes I felt like lonely after came in U.S.A.; however, the collection of the cards with people pictures always can make me be relaxed. For example, when I saw children with bright smiles or friendly people in these pictures, I could not feel lonely. Rather, I was warm in heart and peaceful. After then, I desired to play the collection of cards with pictures.
Moreover, when I collected several cards with people pictures, I often imagined what they spoke each other or what happen next steps in these pictures, then I made narrative stories and scribbled something on backsides of the cards. Thus, I think the rhetorics of self as play could be connected to imagine as play. According to Brian Sutton-Smith, he also said that it is not always easy to keep them apart. The imaginary and the self share the common ground of freedom. Also, these two are individualistic rather than communal. Both of rhetorics seem to overlap in this notion; players are actively engaged in their activity. Above all, players’ active experiences are supposed to be central in play.
What a wonderful hobby. I bet it makes you smile when you look at the lovely smiles on the faces of the people you collect in the images on the cards! (I wonder if that is almost like 'vicarious' intersubjectivity' of some kind.)
ReplyDeleteThis also reminded me of our game early in the semester of imagining we are in an airport and saw the images that we had on the shelves and created stories about them. That came from something I do when I travel and I watch people and imagine their 'stories' or what they may be doing on their trips or where they've been or where they might be going. It's my self-play!