The playful life is not the frivolous life — it is the life held with a certain lightness toward its own seriousness, a willingness to keep even its deepest commitments with a gentle irony. Nasreddin took truth very seriously and himself not at all, which is approximately the correct ratio for a long and useful life. The playful person is not the one who does not care; it is the one who has found a way to care deeply without being crushed by it.
Each step builds on the last.