You are an artist with an artist's temperament, an author of good fiction, its natural for the art and whimsey that goes with it would be so formative. I admire it if I'm honest.
I'm a scale guy, but remember I'm also a pragmatist, a writer of non-fiction, an editor, an engineer. In my formative years I was a bit of an outcast, so my childhood wasn't one of good mates tackling a project together or anything of that sort. My entertainments were much more geared to self-expression rather than fun with friends, so building Airfix and reading about what I was building was a big refuge.
This isn't a complaint about my youth or anything to be pitied, but a piece of data supporting my thesis that one's adult interests are hugely the result of the climate of one's youth.
I now propose the part where I don't believe "fun" has been sacrificed in the adherence to the scale model rather than the whimsy of the toy, not for a minute. I've had this discussion with many guys in the model railway hobby; often using "fun" as an excuse to me for them not rising to my level of scale adherence.
Its a weak and un-necessary excuse on their part. I am a very neurotic scale modeller, but that's my choice and only a standard for me to hold myself to, not for me to hold anyone else to.
Fun is not a good descriptor, to be honest. We each do anything as a pastime for "satisfaction"; the return on our investment of time and treasure. At the end of an evening at the bench or out in the workshop with the racecars, do I feel like I've "played" and there is some emotional feeling resulting from play or fun? No, and I'm not sure I ever have. I'm not sure I even know what that feeling of "fun" is, if I'm honest.
I do get a feeling of satisfaction from a model (whatever the subject might be) well built and as evocative as I can make it. I get the same feeling from a run in one of the cars that is just a little tighter and faster than it was before I spent an afternoon in the workshop working on it.
Too many guys in both the car world and the model building world tend to think their standards should be everyone's standards (and I am certainly not lumping you in that, Mike, so there are no lines in this between which you should be reading!) I'm probably too quick to react poorly to those who want to judge others in this regard; I'm vehemently against it. I'll look at a model or a car, the thing itself, and think, "That isn't my thing at all!", but to judge the person is presumptive and arrogant to the extreme. I often wonder if those that do are not finding satisfaction in their own efforts.
If one gets satisfaction from one's efforts, that's all that matters. Anyone who wants to judge others on how they get that satisfaction probably is frustrated, self-absorbed, or both. I won't do it; my standards only apply to me in this regard.
I pretty much know why I am a scale guy when it comes to model building. I think every day I learn something is a good day, and I've grown up keeping my own council.
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