Work and Play

Certain notions of Work and Play are so deeply ingrained in most cultures, especially American, that an attempt to cast a fresh eye at them might constitute blasphemy. But, an athlete describing "working hard" at playing a game also effectively exposes the insubstantiality of the theological premises that have governed much of economic and moral experience for at least centuries. So, let 'Play' be any 'activity performed for its own sake', and 'Work' any 'activity performed for the sake of something else'. Beyond these definitions, the familiar cultural connotations that characterize and differentiate them are extrinsic. For example, Play can be serious and concerted, while Work can be careless and lackadaisical. Hence, a 'labor of love', or 'playing' a sport as merely a means to a large salary, are not anomalies, linguistic quirks, or examples of irony, but evidence of the inadequacy of traditional cultural classifications.