The opposite of play is not work. It's depression.

Play is a subset of voluntary behaviour involving a selective mechanism which reverses the usual contingencies of power so as to permit the subject a controllable and dialectical simulation of the moderately unmastered arousals and regulations of everyday life, in a way that is alternatively vivifying and euphoric.

The opposite of play isn’t work. It’s depression. To play is to act out and be willful, exultant and committed as if one is assured of one’s prospects.

We study play because life is crap. Life is crap, and it’s full of pain and suffering, and the only thing that makes it worth living — the only thing that makes it possible to get up in the morning and go on living — is play. Art and play.

The opposite of play is not work. It's depression.