I took a very different message from it. He started out having fun with physics, worked very hard to accomplish tangible things with it, and burned out because

I took a very different message from it. He started out having fun with physics, worked very hard to accomplish tangible things with it, and burned out because that made it stop being fun (to the point where he found it "disgusting"). He started playing again, doing things that were completely useless, and that lead to his greatest discovery.