“A man’s maturity: that is to have rediscovered the seriousness he possessed as a child at play.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
“To escape boredom, man works either beyond what his usual needs require, or else he invents play, that is, work that is designed to quiet no need other than that for working in general.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human
Why do animals play? Well, why shouldn’t they? The real question is: Why does the existence of action carried out for the sheer pleasure of acting, the exertion of powers for the sheer pleasure of exerting them, strike us as mysterious? What does it tell us about ourselves that we instinctively assume that it is?
via What’s the Point If We Can’t Have Fun? | David Graeber | The Baffler.
