How wonderful it feels to be able to put together a Lego toy 40 years after it was last touched.
I remember playing with Lego as a child, but I don’t recall it ever being on my ‘I want, I want…’ list at Christmas.
Other toys delivered more immediate rewards. Star Wars, Action Force, Evel Knievel, toys that were action-ready straight out of the box.
Nevertheless, the Lego did get a look in and I amassed a fair-sized collection of bricks.
At some point, I stopped playing with it. I am not sure when, but sometime after, there must have been a decisive action to box it up and archive it somewhere in the house.
Thankfully – and I only appreciate this now – it wasn’t thrown out.
So that was that. Life continued on as it sat, immobile, out of mind and frozen in time.
At some point, when I got my own house, we became reunited. And once again it sat, immobile, out of mind and frozen in time.
Somehow, this box had evaded cull after cull of old toys and possessions. Perhaps it commanded some mystical power over all who were entrusted with it.
‘Keep me, keep me, just in case’.
Until, finally, its day had come. A new generation had appeared with small fingers, as yet unimpressed with fad or fashion and ready to build his own world.
And what do you know? It still works as perfectly as it did all those years ago.
It still rewards imaginative play, develops creativity and provides an environment of innovation through small iterative accomplishments.
It also adapts to the child and his interests, whether it’s cars this month, dinosaurs next month or monster trucks every second Wednesday of the month- it just gets taken apart and built again with greater and greater complexity.
Not only that, it is 100% compatible with the Lego on sale today. And boy hasn’t it evolved. If you still think Lego is just for kids look again.
The house now has a variety of Lego-inspired accessories such as iPhone and laptop stands.
There is a risk that tomorrow they will be pillaged for parts in a space rocket, but I don’t mind that, as long as I get to play.
If only more things in life were designed to be less obsolescent and more Lego.