A Famed Lego Exhibit Showcased That 'Ole Glorious Attentive Focus

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Recently, I went to a Lego art show with my two adult sons. These are the only two people in my life with whom I’ve spent countless hours sitting on the floor, hunched over, engrossed, fiddling with Legos. You could say the show — Art of the Brick — was a pilgrimage of sorts.

It was also a birthday request of mine, with its world-traveling status and its million+ bricks. And while I thought it would be cool to see, I also wanted to experience it with my kids. I saw it as an homage to those days of searching with keen attention for a specific Lego in a morass of plastic bricks, all for that millisecond of joy as you click it into its precise place in the creation of the moment — and the mother-son connection that comes with that.

As we walked around the exhibit, we did what everyone else was doing — took photos of the impossibly large sculptures positioned around a massive exhibit hall. Each creation had a Lego count listed on its title card. Some numbered over eighty thousand. I kept imagining how the artist must have tracked the Legos he clicked into place. This was high-focus stuff.

Maybe that’s a glimmer of a hint that explains why, as we left the exhibit, the three of us looked at each other and shrugged.

“What’d you think?”

“Meh.”

“Me, too.”

“Yeah. Same.”

But why? Why weren’t we dazzled as we’d thought we’d be? These sculptures far exceeded anything we’d ever made or would ever think to. Why hadn’t we been more impressed?

Perhaps the real reason we loved working with Legos back in the day didn’t only have to do with what we were creating. Perhaps what we loved even more was the process of creating.

Sure, we were happy to see our finished projects, just as one is happy to view their completed cardboard puzzle. It’s cool to see a culmination of effort. But sometimes, the culminating is the bigger satisfaction.

In this time of troubling reality around the planet, we could do far worse than buy some Legos, spread them on a table or floor, and set to work clicking our way to a finished piece. This is because when we work on Legos or a puzzle — or draw, knit, garden, paint a wall, sand a surface, cook, juggle, do a crossword, write, or meditate — we’re activating a large-scale brain network called the TPN, or task-positive network.

I tell my coaching clients about this glorious network regularly. It’s our saving grace--as long as we can pull ourselves out of it before too long.

Instead of the mind wandering — either to expansive delightful thoughts or train-wreck gloomy ones — the mind stays put, focusing intently on what’s in front of it. The more we operate from the TPN, the more we build the ability to stay focused and move away from ruminative thinking, which only brings us down. Time spent in the TPN calms us and develops greater attentional control. It feels like a vacation every time I spend time in it.

The TPN is also the entryway to a flow state if we give it the chance. When the brain’s creative imagining partners up with its attentional focus, you can get that dreamiest of all mind spaces — flow.

People have commented on the comics I draw, saying things like, “I could never do that. It seems like such a commitment. How do you do it?”

Truthfully, they are a commitment. Each one takes me 2+ hours to draw. I’m slow — and particular, maybe more than I need to be. Yet, I always say the same thing about my comics: they keep me sane. They’re my new knitting. I needed to find a replacement for that old pastime because I’d accumulated more hand-knit sweaters and vests than a human could reasonably wear. So, drawing it was.

I like to draw my comics at night when I don’t have — or need — much brain power, and when I can chill out on the couch and get in the zone with my drawing pad. For 2+ hours per comic, I get the glory of being in my TPN. I am certain that spending time in this neural network has changed who I am over time, even just a little.

This was the same mind space my sons and I occupied when we sculpted with Legos together. We’d drape ourselves over the floor of our family room, or the kitchen chairs, and go to town with the latest Lego instructions for the latest boxed project we brought home from Target.

Over time, the cost of these projects added up, and so did our stash of Legos, so we moved on to making our own creations — buildings, airplanes, vehicles, you name it. We’d chat low-key and easy, moving methodically toward a shared aim, with a group mentality of focus and happy calm. It was sublime. It’s the same vibe we have today when we drool over a family puzzle on the kitchen table — shared aim, focus, happy calm.

I think this is why the famed Lego show wasn’t what I thought it would be. I’d mistaken the Lego experience for the result and not the process. Back when we played with Legos, I think we intuitively knew the process was what we were attracted to, but I don’t think we would have articulated it that way. We knew we were excited to be building this rocket or that race car. But maybe we mistook our excitement over the final destination for the real reason we did it. Simply put, Legos were fun, and this is why we kept at it.

Today, my family and I have activities that we love to do and that keep us in the TPN for much of the time. There is video gaming, doing puzzles, making various puzzle-type crafts, painting, reading, Rubik's cubing, gardening, writing, and drawing, among others. I suspect these side hobbies and interests have influenced our family unit’s tendency towards peace and away from conflict. These kinds of activities can help strengthen the brain in functional ways. Any time spent out of the reach of negative spiraling is a gift that reverberates both inside and outside the person.

You don’t need much to engage the TPN. You simply need an activity you like to do, that holds your attentive focus and leaves you feeling centered. This is when you know you’ve worked that area of your brain. This is when you start to understand how time spent tending to what’s in front of you can lead to a different you.

Then one day, maybe you’ll walk into a big exhibit of some kind, and you’ll realize that while the show is nice and fine, what hits you more is knowing the journey to this end result made someone feel extremely good and much better for it. You’ll know this because it’s happened to you.

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Hope the rest of your week goes well, friends.