Don’t Try This at Home
After six months, ~22,000 pieces, 300 work-hours, and way too much money spent on eBay orders for more parts, my K'NEX model of the Nebraska State Capitol is finished—and let me tell you, folks, this is something you definitely shouldn't try at home. Why? Let's count the reasons.
1. You have to be willing to spend long hours staring at your creation with the same expression the Titanic's captain must have had when he saw that iceberg six yards away: total befuddlement mixed with some despair. My K'NEX design process can best be summarized as "trial and error, but like almost entirely error." I refuse to work from pre-plans (mine or anyone else's), so I design everything on the fly. Believe it or not, I'm not perfect, so a given section usually takes about ten tries before I get it right. Those first nine failures can be rather depressing, accompanied by thoughts like "does my life even matter?" and "the architect of the real Capitol must have had a real sadistic sense of humor aimed specifically at future model-builders. I'm going to throttle him" and "wait—maybe THIS will work..."
2. You have to be willing to enjoy the immense rush that comes with figuring something out while knowing that crushing failure is yet again only moments away. Six months is a long time to play with toys, people. Those moments—that tenth try, where it all clicks into place—are better than hitting game-winning buzzer-beaters. Just kidding. But it's close. And then you have to fail nine times again. Sometimes I'd go a whole week stuck on one section, and I'd want to rip the whole thing apart in frustration. It's not a pretty sight: me, hunched over, foaming at the mouth, clawing the ground like a feral animal at 2 in the morning and scaring the crap out of my innocent roommate who just wanted to get a drink of water from the kitchen. "But why won't those octagons connect?" I moan, pulling my hair out. "I made sure they would line up with the corners."
3. Speaking of roommates, you have to be willing to endure the uncomfortable conversations regarding how much space this project is going to take up on the main floor of your house. "It's going to be how big?" "Well, uh, I'm going to, uh, need the entire other living room. So you, ya know, won't be able to use it for like a year. Is that cool?" At first, it was just in my bedroom, and then after a few months I moved it into the main area, where it eventually took over the whole room. After a while it became pretty much impossible to move, so if you come over now, you know, watch your step. For those with apartments you really shouldn't try this at home, unless you can convince your building supervisor to let you build it on the roof.
4. You have to be willing to try to explain to your mom/grandma/relatives/coworkers/everyone what you're doing and why exactly you're doing it, which is quite difficult when the true answer is "playing with toys several hours a day at age 23 for zero monetary or professional gain, for no real reason at all." Normally I'd just try to laugh the question off, downplaying the extent of my descent into K'NEX mania, but inside I'd be very nervous that they could tell I'd totally lost my mind. I kept waiting for someone to say "aren't you a little old for that?" or "don't you have a job?" Plus, you have to be willing to spend 300 hours (an estimate; I didn't keep exact track, but I'm pretty sure it was 300 minimum) doing something for reasons you're not sure you have. No: I don't know why I did it, other than 1) I could, 2) I usually had a lot of fun doing it, and 3) by the third month I'd sunk so much money into it that it would have been shameful (but financially responsible) to quit. Why the Capitol specifically and not the Eiffel Tower or something? You tell me. It's a cool building but I've spent so many hours looking at photos of it that I've got to be on some sort of watchlist.
5. Unless you have twenty thousand K'NEX pieces lying around, you have to be willing to drop several hundred dollars on toys instead of other, more useful things, like rent, or food. I got mine from two sources: Ebay and plasticbuilder.com. I'd like to think that I gave plasticbuilder.com 90% of their year's revenue, and I can only imagine that every time I ordered some more parts they were licking their lips and laughing their heads off at this moron in Nebraska who kept giving them his money for plastic toys. "Send him another 20% off coupon," they'd say, eyes gleaming—"There's no way he can refuse to use it!" Boy, were they right. I was a sucker for so many 20% off deals that they're probably crushed that their prized buyer is no longer ordering stuff. To be fair to them, they have great customer service and ship quickly, but still, each time I said "Okay, this is the last time I need to order anything," it was mentally harder to order more the next time. The mail service guy in our neighborhood had to be wondering just what the heck was going on inside our house, with him delivering a large package what felt like every three days.
6. You have to be willing to listen to endless repeats of the Allman Brothers Band’s seminal 1971 album Eat a Peach and Peter Frampton's astonishing 1976 live album Frampton Comes Alive, usually back-to-back, while attempting to solve a nasty problem involving the inner structure of the Capitol's base. Or a nasty problem involving the roof. Or the south entrance. Or the tower's columns. Or the east and west sides, which match each other but not the north or south. Or the support system necessary to hold the corners up. Or those stupid octagons at the observation floor. Regardless of the problem you have to really enjoy listening to the Allman Brothers and Peter Frampton, because those are the only albums that really make sense while building the thing. Something about their energy counteracts your frustration. So if there ever was a "song of the project" it'd be "Mountain Jam" by the Allman Brothers, all 33 minutes of it, because before you know it, the song's over and you've wasted half an hour on one problem you're no closer to solving. I hope you like the 70s...
7. And of course, you have to be willing to feel the deep, incredible, immense satisfaction that comes from watching the vision in your head come to life in front of your eyes, the fruits of your labor made three-dimensional and tangible, the knowledge that with your own hands and own head you made something you enjoy, and that whatever blood and sweat (I accidentally cut myself on a piece once, and I'd work long hours in bad A/C, so I sweated a lot) you poured into it over six months was all worth it for the fun you had while building it and the pride you felt once it was finished.
So no, don't try this at home. Don't find a hobby that provides potentially limitless hours of enjoyment. Don't undertake challenging yet rewarding projects that provide a strong sense of self-worth. Don't enrich your life by pursuing activities that don't involve screens. Don't develop your mechanical or artistic intelligence through repeated practice. Don't take up painting, gardening, an instrument, knitting, model-building, or anything else that declutters your mind, unplugs your life from the saturation of digital media, and provides simple joy through the process of creation. And don't, under any circumstances, work diligently on something that you don't know if you'll finish, because the end result of something is all that matters.
Right?
