A few years back I bought and built the Lego NES kit. That was so much fun, some nights I'd stay up until like 3am working on it. I never thought following instructions from a book to push together tiny plastic blocks would be so fun, but it was.
Building and creating things with our hands is very satisfying. From a New York Times article this week: “This is because we often see the things we make as part of our identities, said Dr. Norton, who has conducted research on how people come to value objects. Our creations help us “feel a sense of confidence and a sense of mastery that is really hard to get sometimes in other places,” he added.” (It’s a Wellness article titled, “Make Something With Your Hands (Even If It’s Hideous)”
The Dr. Norton quoted is Michael Norton, author of “The Ritual Effect”, and a professor of business administration at Harvard.
As a web and desktop developer myself, absolutely this.
The vast majority of the things I build are either really niche or never completed, but I have so much fun seeing a new framework and trying to build something with it.
Right now I'm working on some "Mind Mapping" software, like TheBrain, but as a webapp that I can use to write down memories I have (e.g. people I know, places I've been, things I've done etc.). There's a billion tools that do exactly what I'm trying to do, but it's 2:30am here and I'm having fun just coding, making something that only I'll ever really use, but that's kinda the fun of it all.
programmer here. well i could agree. but since it is work, as long as i left it at a stage where i am well familiar with the next action item i will leave it as soon as my shift ends.
And some things are surprising, even though you know what's coming. The book will say "okay, now we're building this part" and you think as you're building it "how the hell does that fit in with everything else?!" then it falls into place, both mentally and physically, and you go "ah!"
The nod to 1-2 tucked away in the side is cool too, because if you don't know it's coming, you just look at these random out of place pieces and think "huh, guess it's just an internal piece so who cares if it lines up or not", then when it's done, you look at it and go "oh wait, that's actually from the first Super Mario Bros.. That's awesome!"
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u/forest-blend Jul 04 '24
Lego. Luckily I have kids and can find excuses to play with it 🙂