Welcome to the Year of LEGO
Slowly and then all at once, they say. So goes my journey with LEGO.
In my last newsletter, I mentioned the year in review process I use to emphasize energy givers in the new year while trimming energy takers. The outcome is a better honed lifestyle. A better understanding of the games you’re playing.
So, what’s in store for 2026? LEGO.
Play well, they say. No goal. No expectations. No improving. No performative hustling, the wellness plague of our times. Just being creative with LEGO.
It came out of nowhere yet wasn’t a surprise. I’m sure I played with LEGO as a kid, but I don’t really remember being into it like most adult fans of lego (or AFOL, which is silly, why not just LEGO fan?). Although I’ve always had dualistic creative and technical streaks, the intersection of LEGO, it didn’t speak to me until recent years. Perhaps a sense of minimalism was offended, or a sentiment towards sustainability.
Around the pandemic, I got the LEGO bonsai kit as a gift. Analog was back and people were doing things in their house, cooped up with COVID-19. The kit includes two sets of foliage, normal green and cherry blossom pink. Having lived in Japan for two years, it struck a sentimental fancy and despite not getting into LEGO proper at that time I enjoyed keeping the bonsai on my shelf and changing the foliage every spring. The love of LEGO was right there.
Fast forward to autumn 2025. Amid the flurry of Black Friday deals and hype, I came across the first Star Trek LEGO kit, the Enterprise from The Next Generation. My love on that show deserves an entry on the blog, no doubt. For now, it might help to know that I watched this show ardently when I was coming of age. It guided me through life, history, the future, arts, humanities, and sciences, logic and ethics, morality. Imagination, wonder, dreams.
What if…
As part of my year in review, I decided to reject the goal-oriented approach I’ve typically taken. No, there would be no goal for the year. No suffering to endure to achieve some greater good or outcome. I’d reached the end of masked self-improvement. I’d pursue projects that are interesting, geysers of deep work. No rules, no evaluation, no stakeholders. Funny, this also sounds like the point of this blog
I didn’t pick up the Enterprise set until the new year. As it was backordered for weeks, a new project emerged. It was nebulous, I had the gist of an idea but wasn’t sure how to begin. It was very involved, crossing multiple disciplines across physical and digital domains—LEGO, woodworking, set design, lighting, sound, graphic design, videography, music production.
And this project is still in progress. It, if anything, will be my tentpole achievement this year. Stay tuned here or on socials for more, I’ll be sharing teasers and more in the weeks and months to come. Until then, I invite you to join me. Not just with LEGO, but with a passion project you haven’t gotten around to. Whatever it is, I hope it’s full of flexibility, creative and systems thinking, imagination, no rules except the constraints you choose, joy, and of course, a little bit of presence in the moment to provide silence and space to be authentically you.
Richard Nesberg | Author, Writer, Editor
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