Tag Archives: video games

do you know when it gets hardest

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it gets hardest right before you break through

if it was easier at this part, there would have already been a path

some other chump would have kicked down the door.

but it’s there and it’s heavy and it’s solid

and it’s up to you to figure out how to get through it

or around it

or under it

or over it.

and in learning that trick, you can make it in the next levels and the next ones.

right now it’s hard. no doubt. maybe super hard.

but theres nothing that we cannot get through.

video games teach us that. every one of them do.

people say dont let kids play so many video games.

i say let them play them all.

but then quiz them about what they learnt.

and i dont mean “i learned you gotta go left right left up up down.”

i mean “i learned never give up. watch youtube, watch my friends, keep experimenting, dont be discouraged, take a deep breath. back up and Then run.”

all of these games are here for our use.

trust in the force.

it’s never the hard things that are hard

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video games teaches us this.

it’s never the big burly boss at the end of a level that you have to beat that makes you lose all your guys

it’s the minutiae, the little turtles popping up along your journey, the quick spiders that fall on you, the little bits of lava that you don’t pay that much attention to as you run and jump and swing

PAY ATTENTION TO THE LAVA

video games are trying so hard to teach us how life is and we are always trying to stop kids from playing them. it’s crazy.

no, junior, you cannot play this game on the easy level forever. at some point you need to up the ante. you have to learn new tricks, you have to read the book that came with it AND the books that outsiders wrote. and yes, virginia, in order to win at video games, as with life you have to try new things, alllllll the time.

will you die trying them? yes. but you will also die not trying them.

video games teaches us so much about death. way more than war movies or the bible or classic paintings. if you play Donkey Kong, for example, the average game lasts less than 3 minutes. so basically you are dying once every minute.

even when you “win” at Donkey Kong (level 22), you don’t win, you die 7 seconds into the level because of “an integer overflow in its time/bonus. The game takes the level number a user is on, multiplies it by 10 and adds 40. When you reach level 22, the time/bonus number is 260, which is too large for its 8-bit 256 value register, so it resets itself to 0 and gives the remaining 4 as the time/bonus – which too short to finish the level.”

just like Life, when you have accomplished all the things you have been told you have to achieve, they still figure out a way to kill you.

a valuable lesson that life if fleeting. die with your boots on. and life is about the journey not the destination.

it’s never the hard things that are hard. it’s the getting there.

dear tony, is everything horrible, and is everyone terrible?

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Tony,

Long time, first time. 

I love your optimism, but I just don’t see where you get your positivity?

In my life I feel like everything is horrible. I see people doing hurtful, terrible things to each other. For fun!

How else am I supposed to look at it?

Signed,

Wilbur

Gentle reader,

let me take you back. how far back? all the way back.

once upon a time the Lord made the Heavens and the Earth and he said it was Good. for it was.

then he made Adam and they high fived, named all the animals, and played a delightful game of H-O-R-S-E.

in the morning the Lord created Eve, and Adam was all, fuck yes!

God said, look you can do anything you want, just don’t eat from that one tree. You see all these other trees? Eat your faces off. That tree – be cool. You might not even wanna touch it. Capiche?

Adam and Eve said, what happens if we touch it?

God said, YOU’LL DIE.

Adam and Eve said got it.

God skateboards outta there and the next thing you know a freaking snake is convincing them to eat from the tree and when the Lord finds out he’s heartbroken.

He cries and cries because this is the first time any of his Earthly creations did him wrong. He can’t understand it.

He’s pissed at the snake and takes away its legs and kicks it in the head. it slithers away leaving just Adam and Eve to wonder what God’s gonna do to them.

but all he can do is look at them and ask WTF people

W T F?

so are people horrible? kinda.

is life terrible? no.

life is beautiful and sometimes people do things you don’t expect.

we all come from Adam and Eve who were the original fuckups.

even their kids were dumbasses. well, one was, for certain.

i don’t know how you want to maneuver through this river of deceit, but heres how i do it:

i know it’s gonna be weird. so i expect the weird. i know some of it’s gonna be good, but im still expecting weird.

when the good comes i take it all in because i know there might be some not-so-good around the corner

and i don’t wanna be heartbroken the way God was when he saw that unpeeled forbidden fruit

and that snickering snake.

if life was Maddon football at the easy level we’d all be bored outta our gourds.

accept the Expert level and keep playing.