an manner of being with each other

The young of most mammals play - but they play with each other while the parents look on.  Humans, however, like to play with their babies and children; whether this is structured as games or just “horsing around”, or doing daily life things like cooking together.  Yes, we may consider the latter, and other similar activities, as “teaching” but as in the SelfDesign approach, learning happens.  The cooking, the carpentry, the biology.. all of that happens most effectively in the pleasure of play, especially in playing together!

What is play then?  According to Maturana (and I agree) play is any activity that is conducted without a particular attention on the outcome, at least not while it is happening.  It is an example of not inserting the result of a process in the middle of the process so that the latter is interfered with.

In what emotion does play happen? 
What else does that imply?

legacy

A story about how behaviour can be learned and then conserved in a group.  Similar mechanisms can operate from generation to generation.