The Lego Effect

    Hey everybody, how's it been? Welcome to February, congrats on making it through January. This week, I'd like to talk to you all about a little thing I call the Lego Effect. What's the Lego Effect?

I'm glad you asked.

     The basis of this entire concept originates from the strange phenomenon that occurs when building Lego sets. I would look for a specific piece amid the sea of plastic bits, but eternities of searching would yield nothing for my efforts. Crestfallen in my failures, I would begin to look for a new piece. Almost immediately after switching my query, I would find the previously sought after piece. 

     It was a little annoying at first, but then I would think I could use it advantageously. If I couldn't find a piece, I would pretend to give up, and move on to another step. There was no way to fool fate, though. My trickery was rendered useless, and it was soon I realized the true nature of the phenomenon. It wouldn't work unless I had truly and completely given up my search for the Lego that it revealed itself.

     Why does this matter, though? Unless Lego's are monstrously significant in the life of the average person, this "Lego Effect" is oddly specific. Quell your confusion, and allow me to elaborate. The Lego Effect has a wide-ranged applicability, rearing its head all over our lives (and I'm not just talking about building IKEA furniture). 

     One such example is the plethora of lost papers that turn up when you're trying to find the homework that's due. I couldn't number the countless times I've found notes or forms I needed yesterday while scrabbling to hand in assignments. Sure, it happened in part because I was within spitting distance of a sloven in high school, but there's also some iota of slow-trigger serendipity at play. 

     It's like the saying "love happens when you least expect it." In fact, it's exactly that. So many men and women are looking through a Tunnel-vision of Love, and it skews their abilities to find companionship. On the other hand, people who aren't looking for love seem to find it just about everywhere. While that does have a bit of an 'awe...' factor to it, there are some serious implications. 

     By the mechanics of the Lego Effect, individuals most prepared and ready for romance are the furthest from finding it (assuming the Lego Effect is an absolute), and people who couldn't be bothered with love are blindsided by it. Sure, love is wonderful and amazing, but can you imagine how many scientific discoveries have been waylaid by Love Ambushes? How many papers and novels have been left unfinished because Romance kicked in the door? We may never know.

    There's another devastating result of the Lego Effect, found in the transitory period between wanting and not wanting romance. During this phase, the afflicted experience a vast range of mental and emotional strain, mostly due to the conflicting desire to want romance and the universe's decision not to bestow it. It's kinda like the Uncertainty Principle of Quantum Physics. To avoid a long explanation of quantum mechanics, I'll summarize: Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle states that we can only know either the position or the momentum of a particle, as determined by a proportionality equation:

uncertainty of position X uncertainty of momentum > Planck's constant/4*pi

    This translates into the Lego Effect kinda of like this:

certainty of wanting love X (emotional readiness - .9) < likelihood of finding love

    Where certainty, readiness, or likelihood multiplied by 100 creates a percentage (this makes the variables all decimals valued between .01:.99). It's a bit more mathematical than I wanted to make it, but I'm hoping my point is coming across here. It's true, you need to take action to affect your life, but sometimes the best action is inaction. So, to all you heavy-hearts and lonely souls who see Valentine's Day as a fast approach wreck, hearken to me. Don't worry about it. If things will happen, they'll happen. Don't see next Sunday as a day to feel sad about being alone, because doing so will only make you more alone (vicious cycle, I know). To be honest, Valentine's Day isn't really a romantic day. Feel bad if you're alone on Christmas. Now that's a romantic day. 

     If there's anything I'd like you to take away from this week, it's this: I spent 30 minutes trying to create a mathematically correct equation to express the Lego Effect for romance. Yep. I should probably re-evaluate how I manage my time.