Question: Why do people think that play is something childish? “I don’t play,” they say, even with pride: “I don’t play!”
Answer: “Don’t play” at what? At becoming a greater human being? What exactly is it that he does not play at?
Comment: When a person says they are “playing,” they are talking about something made-up. You know: “I’m just pretending.”
My Response: Of course it is imaginary. I’m inventing something. But what does it mean to dare?
Question: So, in your opinion, to dare means to play?
Answer: Of course. To play at something greater, something magnificent; it is striving, aspirations. Like children: whatever game they play, they want to become better.
Comment: But for children it happens naturally.
My Response: Exactly. And it should be natural for us too, but we have lost it.
Question: We have lost it?
Answer: Of course. A young person is given everything and nothing is demanded of them, and essentially, they…
Question: Stop playing?
Answer: Of course.
Question: So this is the root of all depression, drugs, and so on? A person stops playing?
Answer: Life no longer compels them.
Question: Should life compel us to play?
Answer: “What is our life? A game!” Only a different kind of game.
Question: We talk about suffering and so on, but does suffering push us toward the game? Does it say to us: “Play”? If I played, would I not suffer so much? Can one say that?
Answer: I would say that I constantly examine myself and am vigilant in checking to see if a desire to stop has arisen within me. You know, I’d like to make that final move at the last minute with real intent: snap.
Comment: And that’s all.
My Response: Yes, that is good.
Comment: I envy such endings too. You know, when someone walks onto the stage and boom! That’s it.
My Response: Yes.
Question: I want to ask something very relevant now. Is playing the way out of the state humanity is currently in? Humanity is at a dead end, lost in thought.
Answer: Of course. We must play at the state we wish to attain. You know how Kozma Prutkov said: “If you want to be happy – be happy”? It is very true.
Question: What game should we play now, in these uncertain times?
Answer: We must play at friendship and love.
Comment: Your simple answers always unsettle me. Friendship and love, they seem to require something more.
My Response: Is that bad?
Comment: It sounds childish. I’ve told you many times, it sounds childish, fit for children.
My Response: Well then, let people remain trapped in their narrow-minded seriousness. I don’t know what else to call it.
Comment: But you truly say: “Play at friendship and love.”
My Response: Of course. What else does a person really have? When this disappears, life loses its taste.
Question: So this is the main game? Constantly?
Answer: Of course. A flirtation with life.
Question: With life or with another person?
Answer: No, with life.
Question: When you say “friendship and love,” do you mean toward another person, toward those close to us, toward distant people, toward the world? Is all of that included?
Answer: Of course. Everything is included in it. There must be movement.
Comment: But if it is a game, and inwardly I understand that I do not truly relate to him this way.
My Response: That does not matter. Even if I do it deliberately.
Question: So it must be done intentionally?
Answer: Of course.
Question: Even if I do not actually feel this way toward him?
Answer: Initially I may not feel this way toward him, but afterward I create it.
Question: I create this world of play: I do not naturally relate to a person with love, yet I constantly want to love him and want friendship with him. And then this world manifests, this level? Do I step into it? Does it actually happen?
Answer: What happens is what you truly want to happen.
Question: Let me summarize. Our main game is the game of friendship and love?
Answer: Yes, because only a good connection between us—let’s not call it “friendship and love” because that sounds too childish—rather, only a benevolent connection between us, mutual help, and a sense of the necessity for good relations can bring us to a new world. There is no other way.
Question: What do you mean by a “new world”?
Answer: A new world means a new society where I increasingly feel that my physical and emotional well-being depends on everyone around me, and theirs depends on me. We are so interconnected that it becomes impossible to separate one from another.
I must realize that is a law of nature here, a strict, very strict, law that my attitude toward others determines their attitude toward me. This seems very strange to us. But if we try, if we make the effort, then gradually we will see that the world depends only on our attitude toward it, and it will change for the better. In other words, you paint your own world.
[356935]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 5/13/26
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Everyone is an egoist. People are raised that way and the conditioning continues. The greater your egoism, the greater the perceived opportunity to get ahead of others. We do not understand that true success ultimately means being in the right relationship with others.
