Losing my ability to moc.....

[5150 Lego]

So lately i'm noticing that i'm lossing my ability to moc the older i'm getting. I remeber at 14 riding my bike around my neighbor hood, seeing a car, truck, trailer etc.. riding home as fast as i could and building it in a matter of hours. Now i'm 25 and mocs that would ussually take a few hours, or a couple half days at most is taking near a month. There not bad mocs, but there nothing spectacular either. Being 25, I of course have alot more responsabilites than at 14 that take up my time, but my idea's just aren't coming to me like they did. anyone else notice this the older there getting? Whats next, a cane and war stories to the grand children? :-D

[ApophisV]

So lately i'm noticing that i'm lossing my ability to moc the older i'm getting. I remeber at 14 riding my bike around my neighbor hood, seeing a car, truck, trailer etc.. riding home as fast as i could and building it in a matter of hours. Now i'm 25 and mocs that would ussually take a few hours, or a couple half days at most is taking near a month. There not bad mocs, but there nothing spectacular either. Being 25, I of course have alot more responsabilites than at 14 that take up my time, but my idea's just aren't coming to me like they did. anyone else notice this the older there getting? Whats next, a cane and war stories to the grand children? :-D

I noticed that while my MOCing skills definitively grew after my dark ages it seems to be harder to motivate myself to build something. The one or two years immediatelly after coming out of my dark ages I was building lots of MOCs, sometimes several at a single day. Nowadays it's something like one MOC in three months. And every second isn't even finished when I rip it apart.

I think there are several reasons for this:

1. Time and responsibilities. The older you become the more you have to do. Job, studies, keeping up the household, caring for your girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/wife,... I noticed that those responsibilities are continously growing and therefore sucking so much of your free time.

2. Demanding MOCs. The better you are at building the greater your MOCs have to be. You always try to achieve a better result than at your previous MOC. This works a certain time, but certainly there will come a point where your MOC is technically almost perfect, you've mastered your own building style. This is where you don't get any "OMG!" comments anymore because people are used to your style and they don't see anymore innovation into your MOCs.

NOW you need something you can't learn or excercise: Creative ideas. Have one or haven't. Very simple. But also very frustrating. Because finally you will be able to use most of those unique ideas only once or twice, when using them anymore you will only repeat yourself. And even if people are still impressed by your creations (especially those that aren't familiar with your previous MOCs), there is always this thought in your own head: "Okay, I made a great blue spaceship, but is it really more than the other red ship I made with four instead of two wings?"

For me this is the real problem: Even if I have a whole afternoon of free time to build something, I often sit in front of my bricks and try to come up with something. But finally I realize that every idea I have was already there and I won't come up with something special. Maybe the next time, but this particular afternoon hadn't MOCish purpose afterwards. Frustrating.

BTW, this thread reminds me that there is an ancient bridge (started as a CCC4-entry!!!) sitting on my LEGO boxes waiting to be finished... :-$

[Minifig Lecturer]

These reasons are why I prefer to build MOC towns. Made of many small MOC buildings. They don't have to be great MOCs, its the overall impression of a growing city that makes me feel good!

However, I have had some very bad times too (depressed times, lego-wise) when my city was all broken up. Starting to make a city was nearly always very difficult.

I just came back from my Dark Age last year (my Lego is in the attic of my parents and I wanted one final display before I moved out) and I bought many boxes of basic building bricks. Would you believe that when I bought these it actually made starting the city nearly more difficult because my room was just one big huge mess of bricks, and not fancy bricks, just bog-standard blocks.

Thankfully now, it is okay, cos after a few months of reshaping my layout I am happy enough and I also have enough bricks used up to give me space to think and move around. The real hard times are over :'-)

However I do feel sorry for anyone going through "lego depression" if I can make this term!!

[JINZONINGEN73]

Bah... nothing to worry about, and nothing abnormal.

Between September 2001 and December 2003, I'd done at LEAST a moc every month... sometimes much more.

These days, I'm lucky if it's every 3 months.

But, it's normal.

Creativity usually comes back after a good infusion of new sets being bought.

Hey, you might go 3 years with no new mocs... but I assure you there will come a time when you go crazy on them again.

We humans would be very boring if our creativity and abstract thought were devoted to just 1 thing.

By the way, thank you for not being one of those who goes "Oh my god I lost my ability to have fun and now I'm selling all my Lego off AAAAAAAH!".

[Bonaparte]

By the way, thank you for not being one of those who goes "Oh my god I lost my ability to have fun and now I'm selling all my Lego off AAAAAAAH!".

I like this kind of people, expecially when I'm the one acquiring their collection :-D

Everyone has this problem from time to time, its all a matter of having some good inspiration sources to get started again.

For me, a movie is often a good source of inspiration for a new MOC. When I'm building a sailing ship, I try to see as many pirate/navy movies as possible to keep the inspiration coming and my fantasy working at optimal levels. But I have to agree that something changes with the human brain when you get older (maybe that's called "growing up"), but you have to fight against it.

[SuvieD]

I agree with Apo's comments.

I haven't had time to build much lately so right now I am on the opposite end of that. I really want to build and get some mocs made.

I have been where you are too. A contest can help push you. It also helps greatly if you have people near you who build and collect.

Try doing something fresh. It may inspire you in your technic building.

MOC on! Even if it is only four mocs per year. :-(

[SavaTheAggie]

I usually blame my lack of good MOCs or the inability to build anything on MOC burnout. This has happened to me several times, usually after I build something I'm extremely proud of. I liken it to my brain saying 'Well, I've done the best I'll ever do, time to quit." Of course I know its not true, I can always improve, but the motivation to build just ceases to exist.

I found the best remedy is to switch themes. After I built my red dragon, I had no want or desire to build any more creature MOCs, something I had been doing for a long time. I turned to building medieval buildings. When I built and reworked my windmill, I had no desire to build medieval towns. So I turned to building castles. When I built my huge castle, I lost the desire to do any more castley things. And now I'm building trains.

And throughout all of it I've learned that not only does it help recharge my batteries to build in different themes and genres, but my skills improve as well, and I think in ways and bring in ideas to my older themes that I wouldn't have before.

Just my 2 cents.

--Tony

[Brick Miner]

this is an interesting topic, for sure...

i can't speak for LEGO MOCing (as i currently have more ideas than my budget allows), but creativity in general always comes in waves. i think of my creativity as juice filling into a cup. when your cup is full, you are at your most creative. and as you use the juice, the cup empties. when your cup is empty, you can't produce megabloks.

to make it worse, the cup is only so deep and can only hold so much... so you can build it up for too long, without losing some of the creative juice altogether.

it's a pretty classic and simple analogy, but at least in my case, it's true.

--------------------------------------------------

most of my day is spend drawing... some months are easy, and some are hard. however, if i can take a few days off, when i come back, my work is always better. that is a much better option than the alternative... forcing my self to be creative, that is when you get in a rut. you definitely can't force creativity/inspiration.

also, i think your mind needs that time off, to reflect on your work, and process what your mind has learned. it is very similar to one of the current theories on sleeping. your mind need to sleep, in order to process all that is learn in a day... it's proven that without sleep your ability to retain knowledge decreases dramatically. and this decrease is directly tied to how much sleep you have missed.

i bet your ability to do some creative building will return ;-)

however, if creativity is in fact, tied to age... i don't have much to look forward to.

because at 27, i hope my best work is ahead of me :-$

- BrickMiner