Play as a means of reality

This text... I've never read something so simple, so dissected.
Play, this is something innate and found in both man and animal. Instinctively and without having been taught we find ourselves engrossed in a world of myth and fantasy created by our own illusions. It is independent of culture and mankind itself, it is non materialistic, and it does not need to have any reason to be. Many studies have given play a purpose, and as pointed out by Huizinga they overlap. People may play to release energy, train for life, exercise a restraint, or just entertain a wishful thought. However play may exist for the simplicity of just play. Who says that biological nature and chemistry need to scientifically categorize this curious habit of ours? This is when Huizinga, I felt, became a little more of a philosophizing dreamer than a scientific theorist.
Totality was a theme he continued throughout the paper before discussing the human's perception of it's reality. Thinking of not just the reasons, but the aesthetic and beauty of play. Huizinga follows this with naming play as something irrational and from my understanding, indescribable. Therefore, and this is my devised assumption of his final statement, we are not merely 'mechanical' but have something special about us. This argument, in my opinion, has been used by many people who are simply ignorant or haven't looked into to science for an explanation and have found themselves attributing the lack of an answer to some mystical reasoning... but whatever floats your boat.
Huizinga goes onto more discussion that I again begin to follow and agree with, play is something of a juxtaposition. It is serious, but it is not a serious like anything else. Play is an escape, a creation of reality which we control and which may happen at anytime anywhere. It does not require laughter, but can merely replicate a pattern of more aesthetic. Most importantly however, there are rules. The creator(s) have bound their reality in the seriousness of self illusion. Breaking the illusion would ruin the play, normally caused by sour pusses and cheaters. These people challenge the reality and bring attention to the pretending, the rules, and can make the whole thing just feel like a joke. However, at least cheaters still entertain the game by engaging rather than shattering everyone else's.
The closing statement being, play is seriously not serious, it is a free activity standing outside of the norm of ho hum life that enchants and engages the player to a point of seriousness with something quite frivolous.