Spiritual teacher Alan Watts explains here that the Universe is basically playful. Why aren't we?
"There is a dreadful hoax. They made you miss everything." he says. The universe does not have some grand destination, some ultimate end point. So why do we live our lives as though the next academic degree, milestone reached, level of financial security or whatever it is, is when we will finally cash in and collect?
We hold tenaciously onto this system, to this mindset and Watts points to the school system to illustrate.
He likens our strange perception of life to enjoying only the last chord of music in a symphony.