Serious Play: Rehearsing a Transformation Before You Commit
Use a liminal proxy to taste who you'd become before an irreversible change
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 68%
Drawing on L.A. Paul's work on transformative experience, Vervaeke argues that important truths are only disclosed after you commit to a fundamental transformation — you cannot know what it's like to be a parent, or who you'll become, from books or arguments. Serious play resolves the resulting ignorance: you set up a liminal, transitional space (Winnicott's term) where you are neither fully committed nor merely pretending, and you imagine 'through' a proxy rather than about it. Raising a dog to taste responsibility for another life, or imagining your future retired self as a beloved family member to start saving, both build a genuine affective bond. The proxy retains enough pretense to be exitable, but is real enough to give a true taste that lets you commit properly to the actual transformation.
Origin
Vervaeke's formulation of Winnicott's transitional/liminal space and L.A. Paul's transformative-experience problem into an imaginal decision practice, discussed on Modern Wisdom with Chris Williamson.
Core principles
- 01Some truths are only disclosed after you undergo the transformation
- 02You cannot forecast who you'll become from propositions alone
- 03A partial-pretense proxy gives a real taste without a full irreversible commitment
- 04Serious play builds the affective bond that argument cannot
- 05The point is to commit properly, not to avoid committing
How to run it
- 1
Identify the un-forecastable transformation
Name a decision whose value you genuinely cannot predict from the outside — becoming a parent, a lifetime commitment, or acting for a distant future self.
Pro tip If reading and reasoning have stopped helping, that's the signal this is transformative, not merely difficult.
- 2
Choose a real-enough proxy
Pick a stand-in that makes genuine demands on you — an intelligent living being like a dog, or a vividly imagined future self — not a purely abstract scenario.
Pro tip The proxy must cost you something real (time, care, attention) or the taste won't land.
Watch out A proxy with no real demands collapses back into empty pretense.
- 3
Enter the liminal space and imagine through it
Occupy Winnicott's transitional place — neither fully the new role nor merely single/detached — and imagine through the proxy what the real transformation would be like.
Pro tip Imagine through the dog what having a child is like; don't just imagine a dog.
- 4
Let an affective bond form
Allow the relationship to build real feeling, because it is the emotional bond — not the argument — that shifts your motivation and salience.
Pro tip For a far-off goal, bind the future self to someone you've always loved and cared for.
- 5
Read the taste, then commit or step back
Use what the taste reveals to commit properly to the real transformation — or to recognize it isn't for you while exit is still low-cost.
Pro tip The residual pretense is a feature: you can rehome a dog without being immoral; you cannot do that with a child.
Watch out Don't mistake the rehearsal for the real thing — the goal is a proper commitment, not permanent play.
In the wild
Vervaeke observes that many people who don't yet know if they want children get a dog and treat it like a little person — naming it, talking to it, sometimes giving it its own room and including it in family pictures. This is serious play in a liminal space: they imagine through the dog what being responsible to a child would be like. Because the dog retains an element of pretense, an early exit — 'after three weeks, this isn't for me' — carries no moral weight, unlike abandoning a child, which reveals the difference between rehearsal and commitment.
→ A real but exitable taste of caretaking responsibility that informs the actual decision to have children.
Vervaeke notes you cannot argue people out of hyperbolic discounting — reasons and evidence about retirement don't move behavior. But if people do serious play by imagining their future self as a beloved family member they've always taken care of, and form that affective bond, they begin saving for retirement. The imaginal practice does what argument could not, because it converts a nonsalient abstraction into someone you already care for.
→ Retirement saving becomes motivating because the distant self is felt as a loved person, not a statistic.
Common mistakes
Choosing a proxy that demands nothing
A fully abstract or consequence-free stand-in gives no real taste; the proxy must make genuine demands to reveal anything.
Imagining about instead of through
Picturing the object at a distance keeps you a spectator; the practice works only when you imagine through the proxy into the transformation.
Treating rehearsal as the destination
Serious play is meant to enable a proper commitment, not to become a permanent substitute for the real transformation.
Is it for you?
Best for
People facing transformative decisions — parenthood, long-term commitment, saving for a far-off self — where reasoning stalls.
Not ideal for
Reversible, low-stakes choices where ordinary analysis or a quick trial already works.
From the transcript
“we use we need serious play which is an imaginal practice in order to try and get a taste... so that we can properly commit…”
“this is what's known what I've been calling serious play what we do is we set up this Lial place that Winnicott talked about this…”
“many important truths are only disclosed to us after we commit to undergoing a fundamental transformation”
From the episode
The Psychology Of Finding Meaning In Life - John Vervaeke - #891
John Vervaeke