What No One Else Is Doing (Between the Cracks)

I long struggled with WHY.. WHY I like to build and show home planetariums, in fact this was the subject of my very first essay, Issue 1, of the HPA (where 'wanting it, we turn it on', just like our stars. The only answer I could come up with at the time was 'because it will be fun', and that resonates still today 16 years later. This internalizes as I age, for now two mothers have been lost, and when one sifts through the lifetime belongings of someone so close, many of the things were personal in nature, and one can only conclude 'mom had this collection of plates, or this ballroom jewlry from the 30s, because IT MADE HER HAPPY. Nobody else. But her.

So home planetariums make me happy. And others too, or potentially so. But theres another reason behind all of this. Im a Beatles freak - and I was reading George Martin, their famous producer, got started and got where he was because in the beginning, he couldnt make it in regular music producing. Those bases were all covered. He decided he wanted to do something 'between the cracks' .. something NO ONE ELSE WAS DOING .. so he began to produce comedy records (Peter Sellers, the Goon Squad) which no one thought would sell. And eventually they did.

Im not thinking eventually Home Planetariums will sell like the Beatles! No, but I like them even more because at least HPA's brand of build everything and tie in every passion imaginable fits with this - nobody else is doing it like we do.

And it makes us happy. So if you are bored, if the paths seem too well trodden, find something no one else is doing that makes you happy. Something between the cracks. You wont regret it.

As my son entered college, we sat in the schools theater and the President strode among us, nervous freshmen and parents alike and said two words ... over and over

He looked at all of us and said .. no regrets .. no regrets.

GO for it.