Development in Adulthood

I have a long, and perhaps erroneous, connection between play, imagination, emotions, motivation, and adults. Bear with me here while I try to articulate this (alas, it would be so much easier not to type it!) Over the weekend I was watching a movie where the dog dies in the end. As I sat there crying, Jed and I wondered aloud why we do this to ourselves… We knew how this movie was going to end, the dog had to die, but we watched it anyway. Sure, there is the entertainment value of movies, but why do we choose the movies (or any form of art—books, music, theatrical productions, etc.) that we do? For me, there was a connection back to how Vygotsky described some (though not all) of the functions of play in childhood. Vygotsky discusses how, for children, play reproduces real situations and that it is actually more a manifestation of memory than it is of imagination. I find our media viewing habits or choices perhaps analogous, with the exception that adults have better imaginations so while our viewing choices may be reproducing situations or emotions we have felt in the past, they may be helping us to imagine anticipated future events too. I base this idea on how Vygotsky described the way affect determines the rules of the game and that emotions motivate our actions and choices. Is this why, in adulthood, when play has faded, we choose the art/media sources that we do? This is post hoc (or maybe even magical thinking), but Jed and I recently had a fairly emotional event with a dog, so perhaps our subconscious reason for choosing the movie we chose over the weekend was in some way related to that experience. Does consuming art help us to continue developing in adulthood, in a similar way that Vygotsky posits play aids in development in childhood? Do we transform our mode of development from play to art (broadly construed)? I may be way out in left field, but I thought there was some connection anyway.