It’s an urgent question. ‘The opposite of play is not work,’ the psychologist Brian Sutton-Smith once said. ‘The opposite of play is depression.’41 These days, the way many of us work–with no freedom, no play, no intrinsic motivation–is fuelling an epidemic of depression. According to the World Health Organization, depression is now the number one global disease.42 Our biggest shortfall isn’t in a bank account or budget sheet, but inside ourselves. It’s a shortage of what makes life meaningful. A shortage of play.
