The Little World

Go google ” Schopenhauer’s Workshop ” and ” Inch High Guy ” weblogs on your computer. Open the sites and explore some of their posts; it will be well worth your time. They are enthusiasts just like you and produce superb models – they also produce a lot of fun for themselves. You can share in that fun.

Now on to the zen of modelling. Zen is associated with being peaceful and relaxed, and anybody who has dropped a landing gear strut into the carpet from their new kit is near the pinnacle of peace and relaxation instantly. If they were any more tranquil they would grab a bread knife and start slitting throats up and down the street.

Nearly anything can be examined using Kipling’s six honest serving men. Let’s ask WHAT about zen and listen to the answer:

” Zen is the use of meditation and perception to gain tranquility. If this sounds like philosophy, then it is – there are a number of schools of philosophy that say much the same thing, albeit using different languages.

If it sounds like religion, then think a bit about what religion is. You’ll see that religion can be constructed of anything…and there are some who attach the zen idea to their religion.

Really, what it is, is mind control – except that in most cases people do not apply it to others – they control their own minds. “

Thank you, WHAT. Seems as clear as it is going to be. Now WHY can supply the reason we might do it:

” Mostly zen is done to provide tranquility in a confused and unpleasant world. Many people in the regions where it was first developed lacked any way to enjoy life – the introduction of zen meditations let them feel some good in lives that would otherwise be poor, hungry, and oppressed.

Unfortunately this allowed people who wished to keep them poor, hungry, and oppressed to do so more conveniently. If satisfaction could be got without justice or food or happiness then it was a lot easier to govern.

The people who do it now are sometimes doing it because it seems fashionable. Eastern, rather than western. Cool. “

Ooh, bit of cynicism there from WHY. But then Diogenes was a cynic and he got noticed. Actually he got noticed because he was smelly, unpleasant, and weird…

So how do these two servants’ words affect scale modelling?

Well, meditation and perception about the kits we buy is a damn good thing. Meditate long before you go to the hobby shop or call up the on-line store. You know you’ll buy something anyway, but you’ll be far more satisfied if you plan specifically on getting a kit rather than just trolling through to see what they got. Perceive what it is that they are presenting to you – in some cases the bargain kit is so because it is a really lousy box of plastic. In some cases the really lousy boxes of plastic are the most fun to build.

Why do it? Why spend drinking money on boxes of plastic? Because kit building can lead you through curiosity and discovery to achievement…and out the other side to tranquil pride in your own abilities. If you need boosting up, it can do that…right after it depresses the hell out of you.

One thing , though, you have to remember that it is not fashionable. Even if the hobby shops are turning over a good profit and people are building more and more models and your local hobby club ( and all the spin-off groups ) are burgeoning…it still isn’t fashionable. The cool kids don’t build scale models or collections or little worlds. They are too cool for that. They keep an close watch upon each other to monitor their social temperature and if it starts to rise toward enthusiasm, they stifle the impulse.

That’s what being cool is.