Book Reviews: Playful: How Play Shifts Our Thinking, Inspires Connection, and Sparks Creativity

"What if ... I could spend the next hour ... day ... week doing exactly what I chose? What would that be? What would I find fun right now? What's stopping me?"
- Cas Holman, Playful 

Playful by Cas Holman was a book I didn’t know I needed. As someone on the threshold of adulthood at the ripe age of 25, I’ve been asking myself a lot of questions about what it means to get older. As a socially constructed consequence of aging, we are told to shake off our curiosity in place of stability and responsibility. Somewhere along the way, I internalized that adulthood meant sacrificing joy and, for some reason, suppressing yourself in an effort to look like you have your life together.

It’s interesting what we consider “together”: someone who has figured it all out and appears to know the secret sauce to surviving this wild existence. Unless you’re aware of your own reincarnation, we’re all kind of winging it, trying to figure out something that doesn’t really need to be solved. Adulthood feels like a performance to me — one I’m carefully, almost stubbornly, trying not to take part in.

The Ritual of Playmaking 

Holman emphasizes how play can be just as important a component in our lives, no matter what age we are. Playing is not restricted to toys, childhood, or playgrounds; it is a state of being that can be accessed anywhere and anytime. It’s similar to joy or happiness — you don’t necessarily need perfect conditions to engage with play, since it’s more of a perspective and mindset shift.

Adulthood, or at least the performance of it, doesn’t allow much room for playmaking. Instead, we sequester ourselves in a blanket of responsibilities to make sense of it all. Holman gives us permission to change the way we move through adulthood — it doesn’t have to be so rigid. We might not be as excited by a sandbox or slide, but perhaps our version of those things could mean following our inner voice, which Holman calls our “Play Voice.”

Sometimes when I’m on one of my walks, I find something I just need to pick up — I can’t help it. Whether it’s a leaf, a rock, or a seed pod, I love touching things and studying them. I remember not too long ago I would forcefully silence that inner “Play Voice” urging me to pick up that maple leaf, smooth rock, or snail shell. Why? Because I didn’t want to look childish, immature, or weird. But maybe giving ourselves permission to “look weird” is exactly the antidote to all the stifling energy of adulthood.

Playmaking can happen anywhere, anytime if we open our souls to it. It is the key to creating more room for joy in our lives, joy that is not limited to our childhoods but for the rest of our lives. 

Curiosity Over Control

Curiosity is something that comes easily to us when we are children. The world is our playground, literally and metaphorically. At some point, though, we shed our curiosity in favor of more mature pursuits that guarantee us a sense of safety and stability. As a result, our curiosity muscles weaken and we are left feeling uninspired, burnt out, and empty. 

Holman emphasizes the importance of perspective and choosing to live our lives intentionally through the lens of curiosity. There’s always something new to lean into if we’re just willing to look closer. Adulthood can confine our curiosity, tethering us to routines of practicality and optimization; yet not everything in our lives needs to be purposeful. We can do things just to do them, without meaning, effect, or the need for them to make sense or matter.

​Curiosity keeps our souls fed throughout our entire lives. Being willing to try new things, experiment, or give ourselves permission to do something simply for the sake of doing it enhances our well-being and helps us build a better relationship with ourselves. The “perception container” we seem to stuff ourselves into actually suppresses our ability to be curious. I think to be curious is to be alive—to be wondering, to be imagining, and to be yourself.

In our social media world, we tend to think about curiosity in broad strokes—that we must seek novelty, travel, or do big activities with large groups of people. But I think curiosity can also be experienced microscopically in our everyday lives. Maybe you decide to take a longer walk than usual. Maybe you pick up a rock that catches your eye. Maybe you go somewhere new by yourself without any agenda. Curiosity doesn’t have to be bought, earned, planned, or perfected—it simply is, and it’s always accessible.

So What? Who Cares!

We’re all trying to fit ourselves into something, hoping to feel seen, understood, validated. Being willing to look foolish is brave, and it’s not something many people recognize or celebrate. After finishing this book, I kept coming back to the same question: so what? So what if you look foolish? So what if your socks don’t match? So what if you spend an entire day doing nothing but staring at the sky? So what? The metrics we use to measure a life are kind of full of shit. They are not real. 

But you know what is real? Us. Our bodies. Our place in the world. Tapping into the present moment feels, to me, like choosing to be playful. Play doesn’t require a shiny new car or an expensive gym membership. It doesn’t depend on having the best equipment or the latest model. Play is inherent. If we can choose to be within ourselves, wherever we are, that is enough.

A rock and an expensive car can spark the same thrill, depending on who you are (I prefer a rock)—but the thrill fades. That’s why play has to be something we can return to without relying on constant highs. It’s less about intensity and more about ease—falling into it, getting lost in it, rather than needing it to be a certain way.

Holman helped validate something I’ve always known, somewhere deep down: it’s not that deep. Go sit in the grass. Look at the clouds. Stop trying to make everything make sense. Playing isn’t about getting anywhere—it’s about being. Being in this exact slice of time, getting lost in it, and not needing it to carry meaning or prove a point.

It’s like when we were kids. We’d pick up a toy and put it back down without moral judgment, overanalysis, or rumination. We just did it because we wanted to. And if someone looks at us with discomfort in response to our joy, that says more about their distance from their own joy, curiosity, or play than it does about us. 

​What’s the most joyful, purposeless thing you've always been curious to do? Do it.