About a month ago I deleted Twitter, and as a result I’ve been using Tumblr more often. It’s still not great, but it’s certainly a step up, which is to say, sometimes, I find things on my feed that are interesting. For example: here is a video of a fish.
In the video, the person filming (who is in a body of water themselves) picks up a goldfish, throws it about a meter away, and the fish swims back into the hand of the human, expecting to go again. Like it was playing a game.
Because it was! Because “playing” is not inherently a human activity, obviously dogs play games like fetch, and cats play games like get the laser dot. However, it feels human. Or at least, it humanises non-human beings and makes them feel intelligent, relatable, and not just soulless creatures, which fish are more-often-than-not viewed as.
Below the original post (or kind of adding onto it- Tumblr is formatted weirdly), users share stories of their interactions with fish and their different games, and it’s both heartwarming that it exists and tragic that we don’t acknowledge the concept of fish enjoying themselves. Or, summed up by user abadbadbrujah:
This illustrates Homo Ludens (the big book about games) and the Grasshopper (a philosophy book about games) almost too well. To sum it up, to live is to get bored, and to play is one of the few mercies of mother nature. Kind of like laughing. It’s an innate and primal response to humour, yet it isn’t taught. Babies laugh when they get tickled. Monkeys laugh when they throw something or whatever, I dunno. It’s what connects us.
Treasure your games, and play them whenever you can. They are gifts of the soul and the enemy of boredom. I’ve lost the plot to this post.
izzy french. 
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