Play: Why Cities Should Be Adult Playgrounds

Reporting from… Space?

I write today’s missive to you from a Norwegian Airlines flight en route to Prague, Czech Republic.

I’ll let you in on what I’m doing in Prague in a near-future episode. Instead, today, we’re going to rewind a bit to last Friday.

Last weekend, I attended Symbiosis Family Gathering, a festival in Oakdale, California.

I was drawn to go because, as mentioned in previous episodes, I’m fascinated by the idea of private cities (what Symbiotes often call “intentional communities”).

More than that, I’m intrigued by the thought that festivals like Burning Man and Symbiosis are, whether consciously or not, laying the groundwork for such communities in the future. (Boom in Lisbon, Portugal, is, I’m told, very explicit in this goal.)

I love the idea that the global festival culture could help to reimagine human lifestyling because, to me, this begins to solve one fundamental and disastrous quirk of the modern human…

Which is, of course, that, for the most part, this strange creature has become hopelessly booooooring.

The biggest problem facing humanity is not that the planet is going to Hell in a handbasket. It’s not of overpopulation or whatever other demons the Malthusians can conjure out of the dark crevices of their human-hating synapses.

In your editor’s humble opinion, it is simply that we suffer a severe lack of imagination. We live in an era of Space Age tech, yet we still live, work, teach, entertain ourselves, think and, worst of all, dream within Industrial Revolution paradigms. Society suffers from sameness. Ticky-tacky everywhere you look.

How we choose to live is much of the problem. And, yes, ultimately, it is a choice. Thus it’s natural to assume, then, that we need to reimagine the way we live.

Why can’t we sleep, as I did last week, in buildings which look like this (and leave the zoning restrictions for the birds)?

Why not celebrate, dance, play, and not cringe when women don’t shave their pits and dance in hula hoops (OK, that last one’s not actually a requirement)?

Let’s make vacations obsolete because our lives are already exciting enough. Let’s stop escaping to Black Rock City and create free, fun and exciting worlds in our backyards.

In other words, let’s help to create a world where, simply, individuals are free to live, act and look as they wish. Let’s celebrate our individual differences and revel in the human race’s incredible diversity of ethnicity, of history, of thoughts, of ideas, and of opinions. Start there and miracles will happen.

No central planner necessary.

Fortunately, from what I’ve gathered via people I’ve met over the past few weeks, this is already happening on a small scale. More and more, people are giving up on what Burners call the “Default World” for something better. And for that reason, intentional communities are cropping up all over the world. Bubbling beneath the surface of the mundane is, it seems, a global movement to reimagine life and how we want to live it.

And I believe festivals — from 1969 Woodstock to 2016 Symbiosis — are absolutely part and parcel of this transition.

In fact, Burning Man has just announced that it bought 3,800 acres in Washoe, Nevada, to turn into a year-round intentional community. Other large-scale festival organizers around the globe have expressed similar intentions.

It’s a remarkable idea. The free-flowing nature of these festivals creates a breeding ground for mass experimentation in new ways of living, thinking and expressing. And it brings together people from all fields of thought. That way, ideas which don’t know much about one another can snuggle and eventually, if they’re feeling froggy, copulate.

Synergy on steroids.

Festivals also provide a place for humans from all over the world to freely interact, experiment and, most importantly, play. Something which is often actively discouraged back home, in the land of default.

But play, it turns out, isn’t just for kids. It’s a crucial part of everyone’s life — from polyp to grandpap.

Author and psychiatrist Stuart Brown, MD, illustrates the importance of play in his aptly titled book, Play. He writes: “I have found that remembering what play is all about and making it part of our daily lives are probably the most important factors in being a fulfilled human being. The ability to play is critical in not only being happy, but also to sustaining social relationships and being a creative, innovative person.”

This backward and stodgy attitude toward adult play and experimentation, of course, is the only logical explanation as to why 80,000 people would flock to the middle of the desert and brave unforgivingly harsh conditions for a week. Just to play.

Take a look at any one of these festivals, though, and what you’re seeing are pop-up cities — intentional communities.

Take, for example, Symbiosis. Here’s a map of the festival below. It was much more luxurious, I’m happy to report, than Black Rock City.

I spent much time, as you might imagine, at the Hacktivist Village — centered around alternative economic systems, privacy, security, digital rights and DIY hacker culture.

It was at the Hacktivist Village where I met Andreas Antonopoulos, a heavy hitter in the Bitcoin community. And I listened in as he and his eager audience discussed Bitcoin and blockchain technology.

For your viewing pleasure, I recorded and transcribed some highlights. It’s a very good read…

We’ll get to that, though, in tomorrow’s episode. For now, it’s time to sleep.

When we talk next, I’ll be in Prague. Don’t worry. I’ll take plenty of pictures.

Until tomorrow,

Chris Campbell
Managing editor, Laissez Faire Today

Tune in tomorrow for Antonopoulos’ fascinating discussion about Bitcoin…

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