Music was my first love. Some of my earliest childhood memories involve sneaking out of bed to hear my mother quietly play her piano in the evenings. I also remember hoisting myself up onto the piano bench, legs dangling over the edge, and gently pressing one key at a time, inviting the note to ring out and wash over me. The piano was captivating. It wasn't long before my mother (who was a music teacher) recognized my curiosity and began to cultivate it. My parents enrolled me in piano lessons, and I began to learn how to read music at the same time that I was learning to read words.
I took piano lessons for many years. By the time I was a teenager, piano had become a rigorous discipline. I would wake up at 5am to squeeze in some practice before going to school. I frequently skipped lunch hour at school to practice piano in the music hall. I was driven to learn pieces that were just beyond my skill level. I remember the day that I decided to learn Mozart's Rondo Alla Turca. My teacher told me that she didn't think I was ready--but by that point, she knew me well enough to know that such a warning would actually motivate me to pursue it. My hands were too small to hit those marching octaves, but I would be damned before I gave up on the piece. I played, and played, and played, until the song was recital-worthy.
Music was my sport, it was my art, it was my craft, and my primary form of play. And yet, I decided to not pursue it professionally. Instead, when it was time for me to choose a major in college, I chose to major in Ministry and Theology (with a minor in English). Now, piano has become for me what it was for my mother all those years ago: a place to find rest, a place to reconnect with something I love.
Though I did not understand at the time why I was inclined to keep piano to myself rather than pursue it professionally, I look back now and see how my instincts were shaped by a host of invisible factors.
I recently had a student pop into my office to talk with me about a project she is working on. I require one of my classes to create media projects that retell a story from one of the four Gospels. This student had chosen photography as her medium, and she was eager to share with me how she planned to depict the seven woes of Matthew 23 (one of my favorite passages from Matthew). As she described her plans and her process, I was struck by her creativity and insight. "Are you a photography major!?" I enthusiastically inquired. "Oh, umm, no. This is just for me." "You don't want to pursue this professionally?" "No, this is really just for me."
I was suddenly halted by a strange feeling of shame: Why would I pressure her to monetize this thing that brings her such joy?
I went home that afternoon, and sat at my piano as I often do after a long day. I flipped through my old piano books until I landed on Rondo Alla Turca, and began to hammer away at it. I stumbled around the octaves, gritted my teeth, and worked at it, until I found some relief from my day.
I have been reflecting on why I kept piano for myself, and why my student keeps photography for herself. We live in a hustle society. We are supposed to monetize as many aspects of our lives as we can so that we can economically survive, or maybe even establish an economic surplus. I find myself caught between two hard realities: (1) the monetization of play has the power to erode a significant part of our humanity, and (2) in this late-stage capitalist economy, people will do whatever it takes to survive.
We are caught in a vice--an economically precarious situation in which we encounter the ever pervasive pressure to hustle our way to stability. I recognize even as I write this that I have never experienced the economic instability that so many others have experienced. I suppose the closest I have come to the brink of economic ruin was when the pandemic hit, and my husband's restaurant was forced to close. I was a PhD student making very little money--not nearly enough to pay rent and bills or to put food on the table. Within 48 hours of losing his job, we made the decision to move from Boston to Atlanta where we moved in with my parents.
We were so very lucky, and we knew it. There was one significant reason that we were not out on the curb: my parents had enough money to take care of us.
During that very stressful time, my husband and I both dove headlong into musical projects. When I wasn't working on my dissertation, I was playing music. It was a lifeline in a dark time--a mode of resistance, a way to generate hope in the wreckage.
One evening during the pandemic period, my brother and I found ourselves in a strange conversation. I'm known in my family for possessing an inordinate amount of zoological knowledge, thanks to a lengthy childhood obsession. So, my brother asked the question, "Amy, do you know if non-apex-predator animals ever engage in play?"
Tickled as I was by his question (and the fact that he considers me his go-to person for animal facts), he caused me to pause and think. Yes, non-apex-predator animals do engage in play. If play is defined as a voluntary activity distinct from activities that directly impact survival, through which a creature derives joy or satisfaction by creative means, then yes. Tons of animals (including non-apex-predators) have been observed playing in the wild.
The assumption that gave us pause was that perhaps those who are caught in a fight for survival are unable to indulge in play. But the longer I considered this assumption, the more I realized it could not be true. Specifically, it could not be true for humans who find themselves in a fight for survival.
"I think," I suggested, "play is characteristic of a will to survive. Humans play as an expression of our creaturehood. It is a way for us to assert our fundamental worth in a world that might consider us negligible or disposable."
I continued to ponder. In a society that demands that we prove our worth by monetizing our abilities, the ability to indulge in play without compensation is a way of asserting our innate value. When I sit down to play piano in the privacy of my home, I am telling myself that I am worthy of that moment--worthy of the magic of music, worthy of the peace it brings me, worthy of a centering moment that brings me joy and relief.
For the record, I don't think it's wrong to make money doing something you love. Heck, I genuinely LOVE being a professor and an academic. It is a daily passion project that also functions as my means of survival. I am grateful to be able to do these things that I love to facilitate in my survival.
But also, I would really like to stick it to a society that would wring every last passion from my hands for "the right price."
Play is a fundamentally dignifying aspect of life. Play is an opportunity to live as divinely loved creatures, to flourish despite the looming dangers of this world. So today, I am entertaining a small rebellion: I will do something that brings joy and rest over against this hustling world.
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