Just the Bricks

I was completely into LEGO as a kid—had the membership card, had an entire room just for it. But I never watched the LEGO movies, never played the games, never even went to LEGOLAND despite living practically next door to one. That whole ecosystem just didn’t register with me.

All I wanted was the bricks. As many different colors and shapes as I could get. My friends and I would build these sprawling cities across the floor, entire worlds really, with treasure chambers and hidden passages connecting everything, modern apartments with tiny furniture, dinosaurs existing in the same space as spaceships existing in the same space as superheroes. We’d spend hours just making stuff, and the stories came entirely from whatever we decided to build.

I watched this documentary, Beyond the Brick, by Daniel Junge and Kief Davidson, about LEGO’s history and how it became this massive cultural thing. And it actually captures that original magic—the pure joy of building. But it also shows these adult collectors, men spending thousands a month on new sets, walls full of unopened boxes, tracking lists of pieces they’re still hunting for. I get it. I’m not far from being one of them.