A sermon on my favorite topics of connection, creativity, and play

I am very close to finishing the book, "Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Save Lives" by Daisy Fancourt. I also need to share a few quotes with you because they touch on some of my very favorite topics: Connection, creating, and play.

"We humans are an inherently social species. Throughout our evolutionary history, we have relied on others for our survival -- so much so that if we find ourselves socially isolated (and therefore vulnerable), we are biologically primed to reconnect with others. Our brains and bodies flood us with hormones, distress signals, intrusive thoughts, and feelings of depression until we take the hint and reconnect. If we ignore these urges or can't find social contact, we put ourselves at substantially heightened risk of every adverse mental illness, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, dementia, frailty, and mortality.

One of the most interesting evolutionary theories for the arts I've come across is that they evolved to help us become more socially bonded and replaced the grooming behaviors of our ape ancestors. In small groups, grooming is all well and good, but it's not the most efficient bonding system. With limited hours in the day, grooming everyone in your group becomes impractical once group sizes go above around 50 individuals. But humans today exist in groups sizes substantially larger than that. Looking at metrics like our email networks, phone lists, social media friends, wedding guest lists, and Christmas card lists as well as the size of typical communities over the past millennium, biological anthropologists have proposed that our current human network size is around 150 people. And while we may bond with these friends in many different ways now, five hundred thousand years ago the specific behaviors that have been proposed to have replaced inefficient grooming were singing, followed by dance and music making (with storytelling joining the party later, once we'd got our heads around language). In fact, the arts may have fulfilled this bonding role for a remarkable two hundred thousand years before modern language developed." (pp. 179-180)

"We should also all be setting aside time to create imaginary worlds ourselves, whether through acting, drawing, or writing or by engaging in immersive experiences like cosplaying or going to carnivals and festivals. Immersive events are particularly beneficial as they blend music, dance, costume, and role-play and provide a temporary suspension of social norms and hierarchies, allowing us to understand the world from different angles and to toy with alternative identities and behaviors. This helps our brains build mental flexibility to deal with unpredictable changes in our lives. Essentially, they provide a critical opportunity to play. Children engage in play so naturally, and you can use the arts to encourage them in make-believe play, such as by making costumes and acting out stories or scenarios. But it is just as important, behaviorally, for adults to play too. ... But even at a basic level, simple acting-based games such as charades or murder mystery evening provide opportunities for make-believe -- suspending reality and letting you play." (p. 188)

If these are things that humans need to thrive, is it any wonder that everyone seems to be suffering from various levels of anxiety, depression, worry, and fear? Our current western society, especially in the US, is almost the polar opposite of what is good for us. We are not connected. Sure, some of us may be blessed with friends who fill those connection needs, but we need more than the occasional lunch. We need to know the people in our community and interact with them on a daily basis... the grocery store checkers, mail carriers, bank tellers, neighbors, etc. This is especially true when the world feels scary and unpredictable. But connection isn't cost effective. Much of the time there isn't actually a real person with whom to interact. It might save corporations money, but it costs us in terms of our mental health, our physical health, and our general well-being. 

We need to create things, even if they aren't perfect. And we need to do at least some of the creating with another person or group of people. But now, instead of collaborating on a project, someone just plugs some information into AI and calls it good. (It's slop and preys on actual artists, but that doesn't seem to matter.) Instead of communicating in person, we text. (Yes, I'm as guilty of this as anyone.) We don't invite people over for dinner and games. We don't invite anyone over at all. We don't join social groups, we don't volunteer, we don't leave our homes except to go to work. We are incredibly isolated all the while living with the impression that we are incredibly connected. We are lying to ourselves. 

And we don't play. We don't allow ourselves or our children unstructured, unplugged-in periods of time to. All of the research I've done into play shows that it is kind of the wonder drug. It helps feelings of connection, self-regulation, encourages the ability to put yourself into someone else's shoes, and allows for creativity. Classes, adult directed children's sports, and adult directed games do not do the same thing. And it shows. I've worked with children for over thirty years. The difference is staggering between pre- and post-internet children. And if we are so bad at encouraging play in our children, is it any wonder that we are even more dreadful at allowing ourselves as adults to play? 

These are things we can fix. They don't cost much. They are simple. But it also seems as though it is the very hardest thing we could do right now... to put the technology down and go back to engaging with each other and the outside world.