Floating
A surfing accident. Paralysis in the ocean. And the realization that what would hurt most to lose wasn’t what you’d expect.
The Play Revolution
“Play is awareness dancing with the present moment.”
A book about a frequently underrated force in human life โ and why choosing play could be a critical decision we should not ignore.
We’ve been taught that play is what you do when the real work is finished. That it’s a reward. A luxury. Something children do before they’re old enough to know better.
Let Us Play makes the case that we’ve had it exactly backwards.
Play is not what’s left over after life is handled. Play is the life worth handling things for. And right now โ for the first time in human history โ we have a genuine choice about what to do with our time on this planet. Artificial intelligence is coming for the labor, the routine, the grind. Which means the question isn’t just what do we do when the machines take the work.
It’s who do we finally get to become.
This book is the answer one person found. And it might be yours too.
A surfing accident. Paralysis in the ocean. And the realization that what would hurt most to lose wasn’t what you’d expect.
How midnight basketball reduced gang violence by 89%. How kids in a Costa Rican village with t-shirt goalposts taught a lesson no policy could. How play dissolves fear and builds what nothing else can.
The story of Mojo โ a rescue dog who played freely as a puppy, lost his confidence when fear took over, and slowly found his way back to his joyful self. At fourteen he still does zoomies in the yard. And what his journey means for all of us.
From dolphins riding waves off the San Diego coast to the Hindu concept of Lila to Eckhart Tolle’s Power of Now โ the possibility that play is written into the nature of existence itself.
How this book was written with the help of artificial intelligence. What that means. And a direct message to the generation inheriting this extraordinary and terrifying moment.
The Playful Mindset. The Play Revolution. A Prayer for Play.
The following is the opening of Let Us Play. No signup required.
I was floating face up in the ocean and I couldn’t move.
A few seconds earlier I had been doing what I loved most โ chasing a wave, trying to get inside it. Trying to find that place surfers chase their whole lives where the water folds over you like a living ceiling and for one perfect moment you are inside the ocean instead of just on it. And then the wave had other plans. It collapsed on me with everything it had and drove me straight into the ocean floor, crown of my head first, compressing my neck so hard that the signals between my brain and my body simply stopped.
My arms wouldn’t move. My legs wouldn’t move. I was floating in the Pacific, strangely calm, staring up at the sky โ not panicked, but quietly, curiously aware that my body wasn’t responding the way it should.
And then it did assemble. Slowly, and then all at once.
And what came over me wasn’t terror. It was sadness. A deep, settling sadness at the realization of what this moment might mean for everything I loved doing. The riding. The surfing. The movement. The physical joy that had been woven into my life for as long as I could remember. All of it suddenly fragile in a way it had never felt before.
The other surfers pulled me to shore. Feeling came back to my fingers first, then slowly, mercifully, to everything else. I sat on the beach for a long time. I wasn’t just grateful to be alive. I was grateful for something more specific.
I was grateful that I had played.
This book is about that realization โ and why I believe play matters more than we realize and more than we’ve been taught to admit.
We have been taught, most of us, in ways so deep we can’t even see them anymore, that play is what you do when the real work is finished. That it is a reward. A luxury. Something children do before they’re old enough to know better.
I want to make the case that we’ve had it exactly backwards.
Play is not what’s left over after life is handled.
Play is the life worth handling things for.
And right now, for the first time in human history, we have a genuine choice about what to do with our time on this planet. Artificial intelligence is coming for the tasks. It’s coming for the labor, the routine, the grind. And that is frightening to a species that has defined itself by its work for centuries.
But what if it’s also an invitation?
What if the question isn’t what do we do when the machines take the work โ but rather, who do we finally get to become?
I think the answer has been right in front of us all along.
Let us play. ๐
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