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“I just can’t see where these people get their insights from, because all the evidence shows it’s the other way round: our brains are more supple, more plastic, more creative” when we have had the chance to “learn through play. The primary technology for learning is play. You learn to learn in play. And in a world where information is always changi

If we flip these round, we can see that: When you do something that feels like play, you want to keep doing it; the more you play, the better you become. When you give something your undivided attention, you put your heart and soul into it and bring your full abilities to bear on it. When you are focused on the task itself, you take time to get to

In deliberate play, you actually redesign the task itself to make it both motivating and developmental.

Each of us is born with two contradictory sets of instructions: a conservative tendency, made up of instincts for self-preservation, self-aggrandizement, and saving energy, and an expansive tendency made up of instincts for exploring, for enjoying novelty and risk—the curiosity that leads to creativity belongs to this set. We need both of these pro