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Read chapter one of Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul (Continued...)

But in the late nineties, the lab's management was saying, "JPL, we have a problem." As the lab neared the new century, the group of engineers and scientists who had come on board in the 1960s, those who put men on the moon and built robotic probes to explore the solar system, were retiring in large numbers. And JPL was having a hard time replacing them. Even though JPL hired the top graduates from top engineering schools like MIT, Stanford, and even Cal Tech itself, the new hires were often missing something. They were not very good at certain types of problem solving that are critical to the job. The experienced managers found that the newly minted engineers might excel at grappling with theoretical, mathematical problems at the frontiers of engineering, but they didn't do well with the practical difficulties of taking a complex project from theory to practice. Unlike their elders, the young engineers couldn't spot the key flaw in one of the complex systems they were working on, toss the problem around, break it down, pick it apart, tease out its critical elements, and rearrange them in innovative ways that led to a solution.

Why was JPL hiring the wrong sorts of engineers? The people JPL brought aboard had earned the highest grades at the best schools, but academic excellence was obviously not the most important measure of the graduates' problem-solving skills. Like good engineers, JPL management analyzed the problem and concluded that when hiring they were looking at the wrong data. Those job candidates good at problem solving and those who were not could be sorted, they believed, if they found the right metrics.

Then the head of JPL found Nate Jones. Jones ran a machine shop that specialized in precision racing and Formula One tires, and he had noticed that many of the new kids coming in to work at the shop were also not able to problem solve. Jones and his wife, who is a teacher, wondered what had changed. After questioning the new kids and the older employees, Jones found that those who had worked and played with their hands as they were growing up were able to "see solutions" that those who hadn't worked with their hands could not. Jones wrote an article about what he had found, which is how he came to the attention of JPL management.

The JPL managers went back to look at their own retiring engineers and found a similar pattern. They found that in their youth, their older, problem-solving employees had taken apart clocks to see how they worked, or made soapbox derby racers, or built hi-fi stereos, or fixed appliances. The young engineering school graduates who had also done these things, who had played with their hands, were adept at the kinds of problem solving that management sought. Those who hadn't, generally were not. From that point on, JPL made questions about applicants' youthful projects and play a standard part of job interviews.

What Laurel discovered through experience, the JPL managers discovered through research: there is a kind of magic in play. What might seem like a frivolous or even childish pursuit is ultimately beneficial. It's paradoxical that a little bit of "nonproductive" activity can make one enormously more productive and invigorated in other aspects of life. When an activity speaks to one's deepest truth, as horseback riding did for Laurel, it is a catalyst, enlivening everything else.

Once people understand what play does for them, they can learn to bring a sense of excitement and adventure back to their lives, make work an extension of their play lives, and engage fully with the world.

I don't think it is too much to say that play can save your life. It certainly has salvaged mine. Life without play is a grinding, mechanical existence organized around doing the things necessary for survival. Play is the stick that stirs the drink. It is the basis of all art, games, books, sports, movies, fashion, fun, and wonder—in short, the basis of what we think of as civilization. Play is the vital essence of life. It is what makes life lively.

When people know their core truths and live in accord with what I call their "play personality," the result is always a life of incredible power and grace. British educator Sir Ken Robinson has spoken about finding such power and grace in the life of dancer Gillian Lynne, who was the choreographer for the musicals Cats and Phantom of the Opera. Robinson interviewed her for a book he is writing, titled Epiphany, about how people discover their path in life. Lynne told him about growing up in 1930s Britain, about doing terribly in school because she was always fidgeting and never paid attention to lessons. "I suppose that now people would say she had ADHD, but people didn't know you could have that then," Robinson says wryly. "It wasn't an available diagnosis at the time."

Instead, school officials told Lynne's parents that she was mentally disabled. Lynne and her mother went to see a specialist, who talked to Gillian about school while the girl sat on her hands, trying not to fidget. After twenty minutes, the doctor asked to speak to Lynne's mother alone in the hallway. As they were leaving the office, the doctor flipped on the radio, and when they were shut in the hallway the doctor pointed through the window back into the office. "Look," he said, and directed the mother's attention to Gillian, who had gotten up and started moving to the music as soon as they left. "Mrs. Lynne," said the doctor, "your daughter's not sick, she's a dancer."

The doctor recommended enrolling her daughter in dance school. When Gillian got there she was delighted to find a whole room of people like herself, "people who had to move to think," as Lynne explained it. Lynne went on to become a principal dancer in the Royal Ballet, then founded her own dance company and eventually began working with Andrew Lloyd Webber and other producers.

"Here is a woman who has helped put together some of the most successful musical productions in history, has given pleasure to millions, and is a multimillionaire," Robinson says. Of course if she were a child now, he adds, "someone would probably put her on drugs and tell her to calm down."

Robinson's story about Lynne was really about the strength and beauty of living in accordance with who she is—which for her meant living a life of motion and music. If her parents and teachers tried to make her into an engineer, Lynne would have been unhappy and unsuccessful.

Ultimately, this book is about understanding the role of play and using it to find and express our own core truths. It is about learning to harness a force that has been built into us through millions of years of evolution, a force that allows us to both discover our most essential selves and enlarge our world. We are designed to find fulfillment and creative growth through play.