when you can’t stop
One of my strongest memories of Christmas was when I was 8 years, and I got a Lego Technic sport car (Test Car 8865). I probably got lots of other stuff too but that I can’t remember. I was so crazy about this car. It was a big red car with head lights that you could fold up and down, a V4 engine with a manual stick. You hear, it was cool.
But what I remember most is how I couldn’t stop building that car on Christmas Eve. I probably faked that I went to bed but quickly got up again and continue following the manual, which was I don’t know how many pages long, but long. Rome wasn’t built in one day, but I wasn’t gonna sleep until I had built that car.
I remember how my parents woke up on Christmas day and the look when they realized I hadn’t been sleeping, but building all night long. I think that’s when it started, the night shifts. It’s a thrilling feeling when you do something that you love so much doing that you can’t stop no matter how irrational it is to stay doing it.
It’s as if time doesn’t exist, and the only thing that matter is the present moment of creation. The end result doesn’t matter, not even why you started doing it does, only the here and now, you and the thing you create. I think that’s when you know you’re doing what you’re meant to be doing. That, however, is hard to find, if you’re looking for it. It has to come to you in the moments of doing, and you’ll realize it. The only way to find out is probably doing so many different things that the feeling eventually appears.
For me it’s definitely building things, that’s the thing. Coming up with ideas, and make them real in one way or another. Or they don’t even have to become real, most of them don’t actually. Having a vision, conceptualize it, prototype and visualize it, then build it.
That’s a thrill, that I don’t want ever to go away. And yet it hasn’t, but I haven’t had those nights in a while and I miss them. I miss sitting up late, working on a concept or design for something, until the moment when eyes can’t longer stay open, yet you don’t want to sleep but just keep working.
