"So when we talk of "play" we're not talking "process," we're talking
_play-in-framing_, the work we are apparently obliged to do to make sense (we
are obliged to make sense against non-sense, to figure the real against the
not real, etc). And we fall into either-or traps, as if we "shuttle between"
play and not-play, real and not-real, which of course we seem to do, but only
because our moments of reflexive awareness cut the arc of what is in fact an
always contingent gradient."
I agree, here, and I think this relates specifically to Buddhist notions of
the nature of reality/illusion. There is an emphasis in Buddhist teaching
not on dividing the world up into these two categories (such as play/fantasy
and real/ actuality) and viewing one as better or worse than the other, but
of embracing a paradox: There is nothing outside illusion, nor is there
anything outside reality. This is one way through the problem of
understanding what it might mean to "frame play as play" and how difficult it
becomes to distinguish the two once you've problematized the category and
moved away from a Western-realist stance.
Bill Penuel
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