"Play" is the Name of the Game

Leave my husky alone for a bit, and (if she doesn't go sleep under a spruce tree) she'll invent a game. This may be "cut me off as I try to walk to the car." It may be "throw the ball up for myself and run to catch it." It may be "gently wrestle with the cat as it bats my head with its paws." Or it may be "run circles around an older dog on our path just to annoy it." The point, though, is play (versus, say, barking at a balloonist or ultralight pilot as these strange craft slowly crawl over our air space). Even the more sedentary cats know this (they like to play "race around the house chasing each other over around and through everything because it's 5:30 a.m.").

Children know this too---leave them alone, and they'll invent a game. Creativity and play just seem natural.

So what happens to adults? When and why do we lose that sense of playful inventiveness? Why not take rolling chairs and books and construct bumper chair wars, for example? Why do we design "sport" as structured by rules, a serious business that must be done only by proper procedures?

What happened to the game?