(Edit 9/24: adjustment to thread title)

Was recently thinking about the play/work dichotomy, and how sometimes (perhaps if one is lucky) the line between them is blurred. And where the concept of “inspiration” might be relevant. Thinking about inspiration, play, and work opens the door to Art. Art in its almost endless forms and manifestations seems to exist in that zone between work and play. Art in general seems to take the serious work of existing as a human full-circle and includes playful games in this life-and-death affair, while not denying the seriousness. For instance, the walking and movement of life becomes a dance. The speaking and verbal communication becomes poetry and songs. Preparing of food becomes cuisine... on and on...

One could take the seemingly unstructured play of a child as one extreme, and the paid labor that constitutes the job of an adult on the other pole. If the play is a little more organized it could take shape as a game. A paid job or career is a small subset consisting of all the acts of work one does. On a molecular level, almost every action could be considered to be a work of some kind. And the job itself can be broken down into many actions.

Could some sort of primal art, the art of being human, lie between work and play? Is there some rough continuum? Like Play - Game - Art - Craft - Work - Job... ? Is it possible to be serious, diligent, and earnest as a worker, while being playful without contradicting oneself? As a small example, people often have music playing in the background while at work. Could that be a small inspiration to subconsciously feel the rhythm, movement, and harmonies while in the midst of mentally and physically challenging work? What of the spiritual practice and motto of ora et labora (prayer and work)? Does the Daoist concept of wu wei (non-action in the center of action), or the Hindu idea of lila (divine play) relate in some way?

Some relevant quotes come to mind: “Play is a child’s work” - Alfred Adler and others.
“Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration” — Thomas Edison
“Work without love is slavery” - Mother Theresa
“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” — Jesus
“The caterpillar does all the work, but the butterfly gets all the publicity.” ― George Carlin
“One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.” ― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness
“A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labor and there is invisible labor.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
“Inspiration usually comes during work rather than before it.” ― Madeleine L'Engle
“A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which.”
—François-René de Chateaubriand
A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look... The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize... I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works... To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. (Oscar Wilde)
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” —Stanley Kubrick
“All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy.” —Paul Laurence Dunbar
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy... and Jill a wealthy widow.” —Evan Esar

Thoughts?