Nostalgia is the weirdest thing to me. I mean it makes perfect sense... You did something in the past that you enjoyed, and when thinking about it, you want to do it again to get that same feeling.
This sounds great in theory, but in real life is quite challenging to achieve. Most of the time you'll end up getting more depressed trying to replicate the activity. Today I started thinking about an old video game I used to play and how much fun I had. So I broke out the 10-year-old CD (are you kidding me???) and load up the game. Unfortunately the experience is slightly different this time around.
First the game won't load at all of course.. the screen is blank. Oh right, the resolution on computers in 2001 was a *bit* lower than on computers nowadays. 1080p doesn't work so well with Halo: Combat Evolved which was probably designed in the 90's! After resolving this issue I realize that there are about 10 pixels on the screen... Damn, how graphics have improved. The Halo "Master Chief" character looks like he's made up of around 10 pixels. Is that his head or his ass? Who knows!?
Now that I'm through all the technical issues and whining about pixels, I attempt to play multiplayer on the internet. Wow there are actually still servers up. Well that's hopeful. Unfortunately after getting into a server I realize just how terrible the netcode is. People are warping around hacker-style and some ghetto "rockets only" addon is being used. This is not what I remember from playing epic CTF matches on Blood Gulch back in my happy days. I end up leaving the game, frustrated, because the experience just isn't the same. I couldn't even get into a non-full server without some silly mod or with 500+ latency!
Well gaming is only one example of nostalgia. There are much worse examples. I won't even get into thinking about ex-girlfriends because that is probably the most painful (of course you CAN'T duplicate those experiences.) Typically ex-girlfriends aren't really too fond of you after the breakup. They also tend to gain about 100lbs after high school and college.
What this all really comes down to is that as you get older, activities just are not as fun. Life is exciting when you're a kid, but as you age everything just gets more dull. It could just be me, but I have feeling that a lot of people out there would agree about this. Just think back to Christmas when you were a kid. Pretty awesome right? Magical even. After 20 years... not so much. You're probably more worried these days about filing your IRS tax return on time, or not getting pulled over for exceeding the speed limit by 11mph during the drive to work.
Well, I guess all you can do is try to have fun, however you can. Even though life is pretty dull after 20-25, just make the best of it. Try to go on trips and have new experiences. Use the money you make from your boring office job to enjoy life. What else can you really do?
No comments:
Post a Comment