Quite often I have seen or heard the response of “Too much time on their hands” with regard to someone having taken the time to do something cool. Sometimes that ‘cool’ thing has been the creation of an elaborate Rube Goldberg style contraption, making a mechanical binary counting device, building a robot that plays your iPod’s Rock Band, or something else that has little utility to the world as a whole but is very neat!
Sure, these projects might not save humanity from a plague. They might not save time, money or effort. But they were engaging for the person(s) working on them, and to at least someone who gained entertainment or interest from seeing what someone else was able to do.
I think that the people who create, or do these wonderful things don’t have nearly enough time on their hands. If they can do what they do with the meager means and time they have while taking care of a family, working jobs, going to school and otherwise doing the same things you and I do… just think of what they could do with MORE time on their hands.
The desire to play, create, and do things just to see if we can do it… that is learning, experimentation, invention distilled down to it’s core. The desire or need to find out something new, discover the old, synthesize a new reality and step forth to make the world a more interesting place.
To the makers: Let your imaginations run wild.
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