Roads to Joy

I think it must take a certain amount of familiarity with the various LEGO components, and a lot of attention to the detailed construction guides in some serious sets, and possibly some attentive curation of components, before anyone is ready to embark on a project of their own design.

I always found much of the satisfaction of LEGO play in the rigorous adherence to the guides, to get to the finished model. But this satisfaction is in contradistinction to LEGO’s promotional pitch of intrinsic creativity: the bricks are ‘supposed’ to engender enhanced imagination, rather than encouraging mere slavish following of directions. But how many LEGO enthusiasts go on to make their own creations?

Rather a lot, as it turns out. There was a craze, a couple of years ago, for ‘dynamic creations’ which are exquisitely counter-balanced builds that might actually move, much like this garden bench swing I developed as part of my biggest project ever:

Anyway, I had occasion a couple days ago to look up some old photographs of my biggest project ever: a LEGO model of the Elpha Green Cottages ‘estate’. I don’t think I could have done the model without a drone’s eye view of the property, but by the time I’d finished, my LEGO studio was just about overwhelmed with the various separate builds. The photographs, to say nothing of the extended look-and-see video we made together, our son, grandson and me, still offer a kind of unbounded joy.

Soon I shall have to take my super project apart and pack it all up, and only the photographs, video and memories will remain. That’s still a lot of joy to be getting on with.