The Power of Combinatory Play

 

Before the computer age, most toys for children were simple and generative (such as Froebel Blocks that Frank Lloyd Wright used) but the ideas are evergreen, and one can apply the block metaphor to any kind of creative pursuit. One inherent fallacy of the blocks/bricks metaphor is permanence, but they do in fact fail, yet each element still has the capacity to be re-joined in a similar but not exact way.

What is interesting is that each time you reconstruct from a collapse, each attempt to recreate takes less time. There is a wisdom built into the tools and the process.

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More on the power of constraint and [lower] tech::

George Martin: "...what 4 -track imposed on us was you had to think ahead as to what you were going to do. Secondly, you had to get things right at the time; you couldn't just say, okay, let's leave that because we can fix it in the mix. All those kinds of decisions, that kind of discipline, imposes constraints on you, but it also makes you focus much more, makes you think. It put a strain on the performers, too. It made them perform--they had to be good."