Harry Emerson Fosdick, "Living for the fun of it"
Reader's Digest, May 1930

"... Nothing beautiful ever came into life until folks began to play."

"Life in that regard is like love. Love should be happy, but we do not get a happy love unless we take it seriously. If we begin by taking love flippantly, we will end by getting dust and ashes out of it. It must be taken seriously, or it is not happy. Yet it must also be taken gaily, or it is not happy. So with life."

Comment

I have always estimated play as a happy ingredient of efficiency. It is a known fact that the subconscious mind gives forth its inspirations under a lassitude of the conscious. By this I seem to discredit concentration.

Concentration is not a strained method of forcing the mind upon a certain train of thought. We can best study a proposition when we are interested in it. And interest means ease. It is a harmonious corresponding of the mind, – either by memory, or reason with environment. This reacting with environment is accomplished in reading, holding conversation, or by any other method which arouses the memory. The result of interest is frequently inspiration, which is often a sudden illumination of the memory, or the arriving congruency of two past memories hitherto unrelated.

The subconscious inspiration, or the birth of innate subconscious knowledge to the conscious mind, differs from the memory inspiration, of course.

To revert, the best work is that which is done with pleasure. Efficient work can be accomplished by practice; the act can be repeated until it is finally done with ease.