Hacker News Reader

Comment by dyauspitr | Hacker News Reader

I love building things but puzzles and Lego feel like such a waste of time with no gravitas. I believe it’s because it’s such a guided activity.

View on HN

It's not something I do often, but I've done a number of puzzles with my family. It's nice to collaborate toward a common goal, and it's fun to watch the picture come together. I find that working on a puzzle puts me in a flow state, and slotting pieces into the correct place is very satisfying. It also really gets me focused on small details of the image like nothing else - small color gradations in the sky, for example - which can bring new perspective and appreciation to a painting or photograph.

We always glue and frame our puzzles when we are finished (using standard off-the-shelf framing kits from Amazon - nothing like the scale of this article) and display them proudly in a common area of the house for a while after we finish.

But I can see why it's not for everybody, which is totally fine. More open-ended projects are also great.

Yeah I understand. The end result is a blocky model made of plastic and that holds no appeal, it kind of ruins the journey as well. I just don’t respect plastic as much as wood or metal.

I find Lego, when building sets rather than free building, is a meditative activity where the journey is more valuable than the destination. Discovering the engineering and complexity enabling modern sets is also fun. Overall, it's about as 'valuable' as watching TV or playing a video game, with the added benefit of having a new, albeit expensive, decoration to add to your shelf. You could also just take it apart and revisit the set later, much like rewatching a film or replaying a game.

As a kid it was more about building your own stuff with Lego.

I know that they had to save the company with licensing etc, but it seems way more about building a particular thing, then never breaking it apart now.

Lego has had sets to build for ages as well as freeform packs which you can still get, both normal blocks and Technics. They even had branded sets way back in the 50s (VW and Esso, for example).

Of course the really cost-effective way to get it remains buying it second-hand by the kilogram.

Adults getting in on the game and dropping hundreds on nostalgia-provoking kits is a relatively newer thing, but it's not preventing access to freeform building supplies.

FWIW, I think this is an adult vs. kid thing. I used to be the kind who would build my own stuff, and my kids definitely prefer to design and build their own things. But at some point I transitioned, and it's more about having a built model, not about the creating process. And I think I'm starting to see the same changes in my older kid, where things tend to stay built for longer.

For me I think the change came when I was able to build more real things. I learned how to solder, and then I learned woodworking, and all of a sudden I could make something that's the exact shape I wanted. Once you have those abilities it's a lot harder to go back.

(author here) I listen to audiobooks a lot and need something to occupy me visually without distracting from listening to the audio. Jigsaw puzzles are perfect for it :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com