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C. Chiland: I was struck by the multiple meanings of the word ‘play’ and by the fact that the word jeu, which is the French for play, also has many meanings. In French jeu means game or play, to perform, to play a role, to play an instrument, to gamble. It is also used in the sense (which I haven't heard mentioned) of an exact fit. When one tries to put two pieces together and they do not fit well, or when a door does not fit properly in the doorframe, we say in French, 'Il y a du jeu’, and it seems that in English also one talks of ‘too much play’. So I will touch briefly on all these meanings.
We spoke a little of games, and we spoke almost not at all about gambling. A game has rules and in order to play you have to accept these although you can still play if you change the rules, in agreement with the partners. If you change the rules only to win at any price, it is no longer play, it is something else. The pleasure is no longer in the activity, the pleasure is in the results, in the power over the other.
To act may be a job, a profession. An actor may have fun or no fun in acting. When a child acts during therapy or in life, sometimes he makes believe, he pretends; sometimes he starts to believe, and that we have spoken about. When a child is psychotic, he believes, he is not just making believe. So acting can be playing or not playing.
Is gambling playing? Gambling involves ordeal, because its meaning for the gambler is to challenge death, to risk death, and it is therefore not play. However, some gamblers can be good players with their children or grandchildren, which is interesting to observe.
The play between a door and a doorframe is not something one wants, but such looseness is to be desired when it is a matter of play between ideas - that is, where there is an absence of rigidity, the possibility of creativity. A healthy, happy child likes to play, he has fun, he exercises himself, he develops, he proves to himself that he possesses a certain kind of power t