Why Play Might Actually Be Radical | Lara Ricote

What happens when we stop trying to get everything right and allow ourselves to be seen as we are?
Award-winning comedian Lara Ricote joins Marc Salmon to explore play, uncertainty, failure, and what it might mean to live without pre-approval.

Guest
Lara Ricote is an award-winning Mexican-American comedian and actor. She has performed internationally across stand-up, sketch, and screen, and is increasingly interested in play, presence, and risk as creative practices.

🔗 Find out more about Lara:
https://lararicote.com/

In this episode, we talk about:
• Play as a way of living, not just performing
• Clowning and the practice of “try, check, change”
• Fear, anger, and why joy rarely shows up in politics
• Abundance vs scarcity (and what hunter-gatherer societies can teach us)
• Work, automation, and imagining life beyond constant optimisation
• Why being seen, and failing, might be essential to freedom

Reading mentioned in this episode:
• Marshall Sahlins - The Original Affluent Society
• Peter Gray - Play as a Foundation for Hunter-Gatherer Social Existence
• Bob Black - The Abolition of Work
• David Graeber - Bullshit Jobs

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Website:
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The Bardo Podcast explores alternative ways of thinking, inner and outer change, and what happens in the space between.

Hosted by comedian Marc Salmon, the show features thoughtful conversations with comedians, philosophers, Buddhist thinkers, and other curious minds - not about certainty or expertise, but about questioning assumptions and sitting with ambiguity together.

New episodes explore comedy, philosophy, Buddhism, creativity, and alternative ways of living.

Music by Marc Salmon and Robert Fuller
Artwork by Zoe Brownstone - check out her special here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJkF4QSNPmE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJkF4QSNPmE "smartCard-inline")

Timestamps:
0:00 Entering The Bardo
1:56 Reviews, Ratings & The Intention Economy
4:26 Career Steps, Risk and Real Acting
6:40 Play As Practice (Not Performance)
9:34 An Inkling And The Beauty Of Before
12:35 Approval, Safety, And Playfulness
15:59 Presence, Flow, And Nakedness
19:01 Clowning: Risk, Check, Change
26:59 Truth, Uncertainty, And Change
31:58 Catmas, Models, And Roles
33:15 Fear, Identity, And Freedom
39:10 Roles, Performance & Freedom
42:54 So What If I Mess It Up
47:11 People Want to Crush the Mystery
49:45 Capitalist Realism
51:24 The Question of Progress
56:10 Joy, Play & Alternative Politics
1:02:26 Bodhisattva’s Playground
1:06:45 Anger, Joy, and Mobilisation
1:09:29 Who's Allowed a Good Time?
1:19:30 Work, UBI, And Xbox Anxiety
1:26:40 What If Education
1:32:55 Improvising Society

Видео Why Play Might Actually Be Radical | Lara Ricote канала The Bardo Podcast