I finally know why I take "play" so seriously. It's a good thing I had this "epiphany", too, because I might be considered as qualifiying for an Alzheimers diagnosis, or at best, I might be considered to be in a second childhood, if I was unable to be logical about my intense interest in play, humor, etc.

You see, my mother was brought up by a mother, my grandmother, who was deprived of any childhood to speak of. My grandmother was an orphan.I like to think of her a a role model for "little Orphan Annie", and, my grandmother's name was Anna!

My grandmother was brought up without much, if any, love. She had little love to give to her 6 children. My grandmother insisted that ny mother, her first daughter, learn to play the piano. My mother was classically trained from a very young age, and was so disciplined, that she continued taking piano lessons even when she was an accomplished classical concert pianist, accompanist, etc.

Instead of being able to play like other children, my mother had to substitute the piano as her "playground". The three of us children, an older and younger brother and myself, had to learn to read at very young ages, and any play had to be done furtively, when mother was away,because when mother was present we were played, like the keys on her piano, absolutely controlled.

So now I better understand why I have a fascination with being playful and spontaneous. For instance, I love improvization and doing alternative stand-up comedy and storytelling and various other types of performance art,writing, teaching, etc. What I had trouble understanding was why I wanted the entire world to focus on play as a way to transform abuse and violence into utopia. I thought that for sure, if only adults and adolescents, and kids, too, could experience more and more play, then we could all be transformed from the competitive identities that we (mostly) settle for, to cooperative lovers and laughers.

I know now that the tears I shed for imagining that the entire world was lacking in sufficiently blissful youthful, etc.,
play experiences was really being shed for my grandmother, my mother, and most of all, for myself, because I thought I would be unable to recapture, etc., my youth. I know now that, though it's too late for my grandmother and for my mother, I still have time, and most of all, I still have the intense desire and willingness to blissfully play, through various forms of "living" my life as much as is realistically possible, that is, as art-in-itself, and best of all if I AM considered "immature" for playing "at my age", I can respond in a playful, instead of a defensive, manner!