The bulk of my academic career was focused on playing as a form of therapy and as the backbone to learning.

As kids, we played all the time. Our curiosity led us to discover the world around us through all our senses.

Then our imagination led us to invent games, rules for playing and changing the rules as we became bored with them (or they weren’t working to our advantage). Calvinball is still my favourite example of this.

Even into the ends of high school, we were still playing. We sat around telling stories, making up things to do (even if they were questionable) and explored the world in our limited way.

We questioned and we created – all the time.

Exactly what scientists and artists do: both sides of the same coin who express their findings in different ways.

After high school when we entered into “the real world,” something happened.

We lost our playfulness because there was serious business to be had. There were responsibilities with expectations poured upon us that we accepted.

For some reason, we let that take us over while diminishing, or even eliminating, the artist and scientist in each of us. Our exploration of the world narrowed down to prescribed trips with agendas.

We watch helplessly on the sidelines as other children play and wonder where the joy went in our own lives. That used to be us.

We were artists.

We were scientists.

We can still be those things.

We just need to let go and play.