The first time I picked up Robinson Crusoe, I was in love.
This guy is stranded on this island, and he doesn’t just survive. He builds. I absorbed every detail about his daily accumulation of objects, his development of processes, his constant improvements to his shelter-turned-fortress. It felt so good, and so right, how every day he made more of what he had. His own little world was forged from this desolate place. He was a king.
I took personal pride in what he built. As the book described the trees he planted being bent to grow around his structures, and the multiple layers of protection, backups, emergency stores, and contingencies, I felt the same way I do crossing an item off my to-do list.
I never understood why I loved that book so much. I still don’t fully understand it, but I think it has to do with independence, progress, and control.
Two decades after my first encounter with Crusoe, I found myself addicted to a new piece or creative content. When things with my business or family got really stressful – and stressful in ways that felt largely outside of my control – I’d gravitate to my phone and immerse myself in my new addiction every spare minute waiting for the microwave to beep or the kids to brush their teeth. Clash of Clans on the iPhone.
I started from scratch and built a village, piece by piece. Raids were buffeted, resources obtained, and every day, despite attacks and setbacks, progress was made. Walls became stronger, buildings larger, extraction devices more efficient, armies more powerful. I felt the same elation that reading Robinson Crusoe generated. I was methodically conquering the environment to build wealth. It was all in my hands, stoically fulfilling daily tasks and watching capital accumulate, which made the tasks more efficient and the accumulation greater, over and over until a shack became a castle. And then a better one.
The catharsis provided by the book and the app felt the same. A place I get could lost in. A place where my efforts and persistence alone allowed a steady growth in stores. It’s the opposite feeling of a traffic jam, where progress is entirely out of your control and feels completely up to chance. Sure, raids or bad weather could set back my clan or Crusoe’s efforts, but these could be factored in as known risks, and made the game of building with them in mind all the more fun.
I never got excited by Crusoe enjoying the fruits of his labor. Just the building itself. I never had a goal with Clash of Clans to gain social approval or win some tournament, I just wanted my village to get stronger. When I played LEGO as a kid I never wanted to do anything with my buildings and cities, I just wanted to keep building and upgrading them. I never understood friends who wanted to “play” with them. They are for building!
There’s something cathartic for me in gradual, steady, individual progress, notched every day. I guess that’s part of why I blog every day. I’m amassing a wealth of posts, and no one and nothing can stop me. It’s my project, and it will steadily grow.
Building is my happy place.