How to Add Joy & Whimsy Back Into Your Life

A fear of being “dumb” can quietly drain a person’s playfulness—and restoring joy may require more than self-care rituals. In a wide-ranging reflection on inner-child work, Anna Howard connects adulthood’s loss of whimsy to childhood hierarchies that treat children as less capable, less autonomous, and less worth listening to. The result is a lifelong insecurity that can make adults smaller in social settings, less willing to take creative risks, and more likely to trade curiosity for efficiency.

Howard traces her own shift from goofier, uninhibited expression to a more guarded presence after a childhood pattern of feeling behind—especially around math, where she relied on counting on her fingers while her brother took advanced classes. A recent “meltdown” over the belief that she’s actually quite dumb becomes a turning point: the microphone in hand symbolizes adult authority, which carries an expectation of expertise, and that expectation collides with impostor syndrome. That tension leads her to focus on teachers and learning—how authority can either flatten beginners or create conditions where they can safely experiment.

Her argument broadens beyond individual healing. She draws on Linda Barry’s illustrated “Syllabus,” including a guiding question on the cover: “Who is the teacher?” Barry’s classroom approach treats teaching as an experiment and beginners as essential collaborators. Howard highlights Barry’s critique of over-specifying creative tasks: when instructions become too precise, the “playing around” disappears, and with it the gradual figuring-out that makes an activity alive and transferable. Barry’s students, in Howard’s telling, learn to “remember to forget”—the efficient way—so they can regain flexibility and creative openness.

A pediatric occupational therapist’s framing adds another layer: play is not just a personality trait but a practiced skill that can be learned and returned to. Howard contrasts play as fixed temperament with play as something adults deprioritize in the name of efficiency. She also brings in a Substack essay by PAX arguing that liberation is tied to how children are treated: children are often controlled, infantilized, and denied agency, and adults internalize that dehumanizing hierarchy. Howard emphasizes that the harm isn’t only in extreme neglect or abuse; it also shows up in micro-moments—like adults talking about a child as if the child isn’t present—eroding autonomy and the ability to learn from children’s perspectives.

From there, the episode turns practical. Howard recommends building play back into adult life through experimentation: setting aside time that doesn’t exist to produce value, trying activities you’re not “good at,” and using alter egos or “playing pretend” to lower the barrier to creative risk. She points to improv classes as a reliable entry point because they reward staying in the moment, saying “yes,” and treating conversation like a game rather than a performance. The throughline is clear: joy isn’t childishness to outgrow—it’s a skill, a stance, and a way to keep learning without shrinking into shame. Howard ends by committing to more playful experimentation, including shifting some vlogging to Instagram, and—at least for now—prioritizing silliness over seriousness.