…She (nature) gave us play, with its tension, mirth, and its fun. Nevertheless it is precisely this fun-element that characterizes the essence of play. Here we have to do with an absolutely primary category of life, familiar to everybody at a glance right down to the animal level. We may well call play a ‘totality’ in the modern sense of the word, and it is as a totality that we must try to understand and evaluate it.
Since the reality of play extends beyond the sphere of human life, it cannot have its foundations in any rational nexus, because this would limit it to humankind. The incidence of play is not associated with any particular stage of civilization or view of the universe. Any thinking person can see at a glance that play is a thing on its own, even if one’s language possesses no general concept to express it. Play cannot be denied. You can deny, if you like, nearly all abstractions: justice, beauty, truth, goodness, mind, god. You can deny seriousness, but not play.