Thursday, April 28, 2005
Han Solo in Carbonite - LEGO version
I was reading digg.com and saw this link to an almost life-size model of Han Solo in Carbonite, made of LEGO bricks. I thought I'd add this link since my last post was about LEGO.
I don't wanna grow up
A buddy's latest post mentioned "When you are thinking, be childish", and that reminded me about something that happened about a year ago. A couple of friends (from a company i recently left for various reasons) and I were at Midvalley Megamall, I think, to catch a movie, if I remember correctly. Whatever it was we were at some mall, for some reason or other, and we were walking around (probably waiting for the movie, or maybe we'd already finished the movie and were going to get something to eat). In any case we were walking around and we'd come upon this LEGO display/exhibition thing. It'd been a while since any of us played around with LEGOs so we went to have a look, maybe see what new theme they'd come up with lately.
There was a lot of stuff and some neat scenes they had built with LEGO blocks and all. And in the middle of it all, were something like 4 tables just about the right height for an 8 or 9 year old. Scattered on the tables were LEGO blocks just waiting for curious, imaginative minds to pick them up and turn them into spaceships or firetrucks. Those colourful, little blocks held stories of bank robberies and police car chases, of wild wild west sunset showdowns and intergalactic planetary invasions. All they needed were the right story tellers.
My friends and I thought it'd be fun to play around a bit so we went up to one of the tables. Walking up to a table full of LEGO blocks, we looked around; noticed nobody seemed to mind and started thinking about what we could build. We thought and we thought and we thought. While we were thinking of something cool to create, this kid, probably about 7 or 8, walks up to a table next to ours and just starts putting blocks together. I was still fiddling with some blocks in my hand, but my attention was now mostly on the kid next to us. He seemed oblivious to everything going on outside the table, intent solely on this creative pursuit. The kid kept on stacking the blocks one after another, using whatever was on the table. There were no "Oh, there aren't any square blocks left" or "I wish I had a little swiveling block" from this kid. It seemed like all he ever needed was right there on the table, as if someone had planned for this kid to come over and build what he was building and had thus prepared all the blocks expressly for that purpose.
Finally the kid stopped adding blocks, stepped back and admired his masterpiece for a moment, then left to go back to his mother. We looked at his end product. To me it seemed like some kind of tower. It wasn't built with any kind of right proportions or dimensions in mind, no specific colour scheme, it didn't even seem to have any rooms or functionality. But the kid had seemed content with his accomplishment. And there we were; 4 University graduates, a table full of LEGO blocks, and nothing to show for it. Sure, Heron made a PS2 logo right after that, but it's just not the same. We thought too much about how we could impress each other (at least that's what I was thinking) that eventually we didn't get to build anything. The kid? He didn't have to impress anyone. He didn't worry about what it would look like to other people or if people would comment on it. He just did what he felt like doing. He was letting his mind be creative. And he was satisfied. How many times have we done that? Just do things that we want now that we're all grown up and working?
I think work is slowly taking my inner child away from me. I was just chatting with Taqi earlier tonight, and I told him that I think I've lost my sense of wonder and "Hey, that's kewl stuff". I noticed that recently I haven't been doing a lot of the neat stuff I used to love doing. Like my buddy, I think if this keeps up, I'll become the guy I never wanted to be. Both of us have been pretty busy lately, we haven't had time to do any kewl stuff. Hopefully this is just because we're getting used to our new jobs/responsibilities. Maybe after a while we'll work some time out for ourselves. I certainly hope so, because if this is what being an adult is all about, then I don't ever wanna grow up.
There was a lot of stuff and some neat scenes they had built with LEGO blocks and all. And in the middle of it all, were something like 4 tables just about the right height for an 8 or 9 year old. Scattered on the tables were LEGO blocks just waiting for curious, imaginative minds to pick them up and turn them into spaceships or firetrucks. Those colourful, little blocks held stories of bank robberies and police car chases, of wild wild west sunset showdowns and intergalactic planetary invasions. All they needed were the right story tellers.
My friends and I thought it'd be fun to play around a bit so we went up to one of the tables. Walking up to a table full of LEGO blocks, we looked around; noticed nobody seemed to mind and started thinking about what we could build. We thought and we thought and we thought. While we were thinking of something cool to create, this kid, probably about 7 or 8, walks up to a table next to ours and just starts putting blocks together. I was still fiddling with some blocks in my hand, but my attention was now mostly on the kid next to us. He seemed oblivious to everything going on outside the table, intent solely on this creative pursuit. The kid kept on stacking the blocks one after another, using whatever was on the table. There were no "Oh, there aren't any square blocks left" or "I wish I had a little swiveling block" from this kid. It seemed like all he ever needed was right there on the table, as if someone had planned for this kid to come over and build what he was building and had thus prepared all the blocks expressly for that purpose.
Finally the kid stopped adding blocks, stepped back and admired his masterpiece for a moment, then left to go back to his mother. We looked at his end product. To me it seemed like some kind of tower. It wasn't built with any kind of right proportions or dimensions in mind, no specific colour scheme, it didn't even seem to have any rooms or functionality. But the kid had seemed content with his accomplishment. And there we were; 4 University graduates, a table full of LEGO blocks, and nothing to show for it. Sure, Heron made a PS2 logo right after that, but it's just not the same. We thought too much about how we could impress each other (at least that's what I was thinking) that eventually we didn't get to build anything. The kid? He didn't have to impress anyone. He didn't worry about what it would look like to other people or if people would comment on it. He just did what he felt like doing. He was letting his mind be creative. And he was satisfied. How many times have we done that? Just do things that we want now that we're all grown up and working?
I think work is slowly taking my inner child away from me. I was just chatting with Taqi earlier tonight, and I told him that I think I've lost my sense of wonder and "Hey, that's kewl stuff". I noticed that recently I haven't been doing a lot of the neat stuff I used to love doing. Like my buddy, I think if this keeps up, I'll become the guy I never wanted to be. Both of us have been pretty busy lately, we haven't had time to do any kewl stuff. Hopefully this is just because we're getting used to our new jobs/responsibilities. Maybe after a while we'll work some time out for ourselves. I certainly hope so, because if this is what being an adult is all about, then I don't ever wanna grow up.
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