Just about everybody owns or has owned a bucket of Legos in their time. There’s no denying the fun they provide for a child or even for an adult, which is why, many Lego collections are passed down from one generation to the next. These brightly colored blocks of joy serve to challenge our creativity and our imaginations. They act as an empowering influence on our lives in that they almost beckon us to transform them into anything we want or can imagine.

Michelangelo was never short on imagination despite the fact he knew nothing of Lego. On completion of the Pietà [one of his greatest works of art] he was heard to have said, “The work of art was always in the block of marble. My job,” he went on, “was to chip away at the unneeded bits of stone to reveal the creativity and beauty within.”

It’s not a stretch to believe that if Michelangelo were alive today, he’d no doubt see similarities in a simple box of Legos. He may have pointed out; the art is always in the bricks… the challenge is to assemble them to reveal a thing of beauty.

How true - but where’s the relevance?

Lego Law #1: With Legos, There are No Restrictions!

Metaphorically speaking, Lego Law #1 in tandem with Michelangelo’s rationale clearly demonstrates a similarity to human beings and the laws that govern life.

Each one of us – without exception – is blessed at birth with creativity and imagination. To be fair, we’re not all blessed equally but there are still no limits on what we can do with the gifts we’ve been given. Although I could wax on about this for days, my point is, humans, like Lego, possess the fundamental building blocks to accomplish almost anything we want or can envision. And from Michelangelo’s perspective, the beauty [we all have the power to create] is already within us. We just have to chip away at life to find it.

Lego Law #2: Legos need Sunlight!

No imagination, beauty or creative works of art will ever come to fruition if the Lego collection is under a bed or in the back of a darkened closet. That is to say, to create great works of Lego art, one must liberate them from the dark to the light so that then – and only then – steps can be taken to build structure from inspiration and imagination.

How sad it is that most people go through life keeping their creative building blocks in the darkness of their mind. Henry David Thoreau noted, “Most people live lives of quiet desperation.” Like hidden Legos waiting for new creative opportunities, human beings innately posses the fundamental building blocks for improvement that sit patiently for new marching orders to express themselves.