When Did You Stop Playing?

When did you stop playing? Not stop having fun — stop playing, the real thing, the open-ended kind a kid does for no payoff at all. The Exponential Individuals Playbook argues that reconnecting with adult play can reorder how you see the world and wake up problem-solving that has been asleep since childhood. We file play under "later." After the work, after the launch, after the kids are grown. So it never comes, and a whole muscle goes slack. The mind that once tried things just to see what would happen now only does what it already knows pays off. Safe. Narrow. Slowly stupider. ...

May 17, 2026 · 1 min · Steven A. Rodríguez