One day, Alan, a friend of mine, who likes country life, was fishing in a river, when he caught a trout. He tried to put fish in but it slipped off the hook, flew over his head and landed in a field behind him.
Alan put down his rod, went through the gate and started searching for his trout. Some people, obviously from the city were having a picnic in the field. One of the men shouted. ‘What on earth are you doing? Thinking that it was a silly question because they could see how hews dressed, Alan replied ‘Fishing’.
‘Don’t be silly, the fish are down in the river’, answered the man, ‘Fish don’t live fields! He turned to his friends, laughing, thinking that he had made a good joke.
Oh, but they do, ‘said Alan, They jump out of the river to look for flies and I catch them with my hands. At that moment he found his trout in the grass and picked it up and showed it to the picnickers. He put it in his basket and bent down, as if he was hunting for another one. The picnickers, no longer laughing, spent the rest of the day searching the field.

In order to approach the problem of anxiety in play, let us consider the activity of building and destroying a tower. Many a mother thinks that her son is in a ‘destructive stage’ or even has a ‘destructive personality’ because after building a big, big tower, the boy cannot follow her advice to leave the tower for Daddy to see, but instead must kick it and make it collapse. The almost manic pleasure with which children watch the collapse in a second of the product of long play-labor has puzzles many, especially since the child does not appreciate it at all if his tower falls by accident or by a helpful uncle’s hand. He, the builder must destroy it himself. This game, I should think arises from the not so distant experience of sudden falls at the very time when standing upright on wobbly legs afforded a new and fascinating perspective on existence. The child who consequently learns to make a tower ‘stand up’ enjoys causing the same tower to waver and collapse; in addition to the active mastery over a previous passive event, it makes one feel stronger to know that there is somebody weaker-and towers, unlike little sister, can’t cry and call ‘mummy’