Worldly Feasts
The famous author Friedrich Schiller once claimed that “man only plays when he is in the fullest sense of the word a human being, and he is only fully a human being when he plays”. The play drive allows men to experience "playfully" different dimensions of our existence: infinite and finite, freedom and time, sense and reason, life and form.
This playful behaviour is of course also expressed in many secular rituals that fill the spare time of humans - be it the day at the beach, culture shows and performances, folkloristic festivities. What on the surface appears like a nice time to relax and enjoy one's free time, is still full of meaning and key mechanism for a culture to shape how we perceive our world. Looking at such rituals can be an excellent way to understand other cultures and ourselves.
