zenaiid

Hello good people of eurobricks forums, I am very impressed with the number and quality of responses I got on my original post. Also, I appreciate the welcoming as this was my first post here. After reading every reply (which took quite some time!), I see your overall tendency is to not letting yourself block up with worries about selfnessless that could be. Instead, most of you take action in some sort by helping those around you, which includes keeping your heads clear trough a hobby like LEGO. I also liked the post that admitted a more selfish approach, although I don't think this is to apply to everyone here, as mentioned later on. I don't even want to believe that this is exactly what the author really feels. It certainly reminded me that I shouldn't be hypocritical concerning this matter. Some of you presented their point of view from a Christian perspective, which I find nice, others quoted philosophers, that I like, too. I myself tend to refer to the principles of the late Kōdō Sawaki, which I still don't fully understand, but I am trying to. I guess he would have asked, why I was worrying instead of practicing. What wasn't mentioned yet, I think, is the cultural aspect of play in general and LEGO in particular. Somehow everything can be seen as belonging to the current culture, as well as everything can be seen as useless. The latter is a one-way thought to me, as everything can just be accepted as meaningful to the individual and the universe. Anyway, I think that all this are just illusions needed to take on human life. And why not do that, I think it's fun. So accepting the action of play and building things with LEGO as part of the culure, I must add that I somewhere heard that culture is a very important part of society, very contributing the well-being of all its members. Concluding my somehow too long essay (I'm very sorry for that), I thank you for this very interesting discussion. I know that it is up to me and everone personally to find a balanced way to have LEGO as a pastime and not to exaggerate it, for the sake of personal resources that must be spent on charitable activities, too. I wish you an enchanted evening.

Hello good people of eurobricks forums, I am a long-time LEGO fan, played with it since I was a kid and rediscovered it being an adult. But ever since the passing of my "dark ages", maybe even when I was a child, I thought about the justification of that particular hobby. The thing is, with all that misery in the world, people suffering from hunger and poverty, lacking of freedom and what not, how can I justify spending my precious money and time on plastic bricks? Shouldn't I rather support charity organizations by donating money or even working for them? Isn't spending dozens and hundreds of dollars/euros for my very own amusement somehow terribly wrong? You know what I would like to hear from you, that this is a hobby like all the others, and that spending time and money is inevitable. But somehow I feel like this particular free time diversion is more useless to society than all the rest, and that I should think more altruistic. Nevertheless I love reminiscing about my childhood, letting my fantasy roam free and constructing creative models only for the satisfaction of having done so. Maybe you can reflect yourself and post your unique view on this topic, so that I may escape from my limited point of view and enjoy my bricks again. (That's somehow melodramatic for a change...) I wish you an enchanted evening.