Play and the Original Sin

I am a sucker for GIFs of animals at play. On my desktop, I keep a grainy black and white of two crows atop an old sedan during a blizzard, seen from above. Crow One walks along the trunk through an inch or so of snow, gives a little shimmy in its feathers, and turns back to watch its buddy. Crow Two is on the roof, lying sideways, and then it barrel-rolls down the sloping rear window, leaving first tracks in the accumulated powder. By itself, the action is mesmerizing, but the icing on the cake is Crow Two’s flair: Just as it starts to roll, it makes the slightest pause while on its back, feet in the air as if dead, seemingly for no reason but expression of style, like a surfer’s soul arch.

Play is superfluous. From an evolutionary standpoint, it makes no sense. Playing does not suggest you will be a better mate or parenting partner—indeed, it might suggest the opposite (cough ski-town men cough). Creatures at play are likely to be distracted and may more easily be picked off by predators. Play does not pad the bottom line or bring home the bacon. The title of Lionel Terray’s mountaineering classic, Conquistadors of the Useless, pretty much nails it.

And yet. And yet, octopuses bounce balls. Pandas tumble themselves down hills. Elephants deliberately slide in the mud. However you define it, animals play. Way back in 1851, Edward Thompson penned a book called The Passion of Animals. He wrote, “The animal, in its sportive moments, abandons itself to a feeling in which its whole being seems to be concentrated in the performance of some one of its passions, whether of joy or mischief, defiance, or fear.” That animals play is not a new observation.

But these are revolutionary times in the understanding of animal behavior. Science, as defined as people professionally unwilling to anthropomorphize and untrusting of things they can’t measure, is finally learning (or admitting) that animals have language, culture, emotions, and self-awareness. In all this, animals are, shockingly, much like humans (though the premise all humans are self-aware is patently untrue).

Play is especially curious to scientists precisely because of its apparent lack of purpose. Indeed, this “nonfunctionality” is the first of five characteristics evolutionary biologist Gordon Burghardt uses to define behavior as play. For me, though, the why is self-evident: Play is…fun. Play is pleasurable. It’s self-justifying. I’m more interested in what’s going on inside those furry or feathered heads. How do they decide to play? Is it just a feeling? Bears play and they also can use tools, count, and learn how to use touchscreens. What are the building blocks of that cognition? Is it all rawrrr and rrrr and grarrr inside those bear brains? Is it sensation or is it bear-words?

How critters process their thoughts is fascinating on its own merits, but I also wonder what it might say about us humans. I spend a lot of time, probably too much time, thinking about what stands between us and doing the things we love, like long hours in the saddle or a weekday afternoon in the surf. It’s clear that words—the self-talk of should, shouldn’t, do, don’t—become the ropes that keep us tied to desk, to screen, to perceived importances.

Would humans be better off had we never developed language? Crazy thought, but what if? Naming seems like it’s the key to knowing something, but really, it’s a placeholder standing between you and the object, like the way a map hints at terrain but isn’t terrain. Some believe the original sin was eating an apple and discovering our nakedness. I’m only half joking when I suggest the real original sin was developing words. Without words, would we know we’re “naked”? Would there be “sin”? Let’s ask a panda.

My calico cat Amy Wong, named after the Futurama character, chases me around the dining room table. She loves being scritched so hard her body slides back and forth, and she insists we do it on the rug, where she can brace herself with her claws. If I leave, she tries to grab my foot with her front paws. When I’m prone on the couch reading, her favorite place is on my chest. With her left paw, she presses against my chin. Often, even when I’m paying attention to her, she very gently pokes at me, tap tap tap. Do we need words to understand this? We do not. The animal, in its sportive moments, abandons itself to a feeling.