{"id":1584,"date":"2019-06-07T09:17:07","date_gmt":"2019-06-07T09:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nancyannroth.com\/?p=1584"},"modified":"2020-07-05T07:30:56","modified_gmt":"2020-07-05T07:30:56","slug":"what-if","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nancyannroth.com\/?p=1584","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;What if&#8230;?&#8221;:"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What if we just took the &#8220;what if?&#8221; state of mind to be  playing?  I find I really need a definition, and this is both simple and versatile (I can\u2019t be the only one who finds the concept of play both critical &#8212; especially to any idea of creativity &#8212; and difficult to pin down.). \u00a0It occurred to me rereading the introductory chapter of Huizinga\u2019s\u00a0<em>Homo Ludens<\/em>, swimming through many, many examples toward a a common feature.  \u201cWhat if?\u201d is sometimes suggested to fiction writers as a way of generating ideas.\u00a0\u00a0But it must apply anywhere people are up against conventions, established patterns, habit, which is to say, everywhere.  Play would then be a kind of willing suspension of the usual understanding of \u201creality\u201d.  The details of any particular suspension would be spelled out in the &#8220;rules&#8221; of a game &#8212; if there are enough players and enough differences to make that necessary.   Play may \u2013 and often does \u2013 involve one person alone.\u00a0\u00a0But there&#8217;s no limit on the numbers that could join in.\u00a0It is not exclusive to human beings.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Best of all, such a definition leaves any one person\u2019s engagement in play open, in fact contingent on that person&#8217;s freedom.  For the suspension of understandings must be voluntary and must have appeal &#8212; aesthetic appeal.  S\/he must <em>want<\/em> to play. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What if we just took the &#8220;what if?&#8221; state of mind to be playing? I find I really need a definition, and this is both simple and versatile (I can\u2019t be the only one&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1585,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"index","bgseo_robots_follow":"follow","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[189,237,261],"tags":[284,283,285],"class_list":["post-1584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aesthetics","category-games","category-play","tag-homo-ludens","tag-huizinga","tag-what-if"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyannroth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyannroth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyannroth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyannroth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyannroth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1584"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nancyannroth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1996,"href":"https:\/\/nancyannroth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1584\/revisions\/1996"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyannroth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyannroth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyannroth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyannroth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}