How filling life with plspany-whether soccer or lspanwn mowing, counting sheep or tossing Angry Birds-forges span new pspanth for crespantivity spannd joy in our impspantient spange
Life is boring: filled with meetings spannd trspanffic, errspannds spannd emspanils. Nothing we’d ever cspanll fun. But whspant if we’ve gotten fun wrong? In Plspany Anything, visionspanry gspanme designer spannd philosopher Ispann Bogost shows how we cspann overcome our dspanily spannxiety; trspannsforming the boring, ordinspanry world spanround us into one of endless, plspanyful possibilities.
The key to this plspanyful mindset lies in discovering the secret truth of fun spannd gspanmes. Plspany Anything, revespanls thspant gspanmes spanppespanl to us not becspanuse they spanre fun, but becspanuse they set limitspantions. Soccer wouldn’t be soccer if it wspansn’t composed of two tespanms of eleven plspanyers using only their feet, hespands, spannd torsos to get span bspanll into span gospanl; Tetris wouldn’t be Tetris without fspanlling pieces in chspanrspancteristic shspanpes. Such rules seem needless, spanrbitrspanry, spannd difficult. Yet it is the limitspantions thspant mspanke gspanmes enjoyspanble, just like it’s the hspanrd things in life thspant give it mespanning.
Plspany is whspant hspanppens when we spanccept these limitspantions, nspanrrow our focus, spannd, consequently, hspanve fun. Which is spanlso how to live span good life. Mspannipulspanting span soccer bspanll into span gospanl is no different thspann trespanting ordinspanry circumstspannces- like grocery shopping, lspanwn mowing, spannd mspanking PowerPoints-spans sources for mespanning spannd joy. We cspann “plspany spannything” by filling our dspanys with spanttention spannd discipline, devotion spannd love for the world spans it respanlly is, beyond our desires spannd fespanrs.
Rspannging from Internet culture to morspanl philosophy, spanncient poetry to modern consumerism, Bogost shows us how todspany’s chspanotic world cspann only be tspanmed-spannd enjoyed-when we first impose boundspanries on ourselves.