Why you're never too old to build 'castles in the air'

"Whenever I visit a mall or a department store, I end up in the Lego aisle. Like many kids
of the 1990s, I grew up clicking the iconic bricks together to create castles, spaceships, pirate refuges, and — at the height of my precocious years — a free-build recreation of Princess Diana’s funeral. Inevitably, I reached that teenage juncture where the desire for acquiring new Lego sets is supplanted by more athletic and libidinous pursuits. But that yearning to hear the rustle of Lego pieces in a fresh, soon-to-be-opened box lingered, through my 20s and early 30s, like a sleeping dragon.

Every time I ducked into a Lego aisle for a nostalgic peek, I would appraise the Danish toymaker’s latest offerings with the eye of a historian, nodding with approval as old themes such as the Forestmen were revived, and frowning as franchised sets like Star Wars and Marvel took up more real estate on the Lego shelves. It was always a fleeting reunion — one that never escalated to a purchase. Lego sets are famously expensive, and as a Boston renter, I couldn’t justify spending utility money just to scratch a builder’s itch.

But one factor behind Lego’s rising price tags was tied to a major pivot the company made in the early 2000s, when it was on the edge of bankruptcy. After years of resistance, the company decided to embrace its growing legion of adult Lego maniacs".