You Can Only Look Back, You Can Only Move Forward
Recently I treated myself to the Lego Game Boy set. I loved Legos as a kid, but it has been a very long time since I really built a set because 1) Legos, like everything else, have gotten increasingly expensive and 2) there is limited space in my home to display them without risking irritation from my spouse. But the Game Boy was reasonably priced and not very big, so I decided to embrace my inner child.
Holding it after I was finished was somewhat surreal. They did a really good job with it; even though you can’t see it now that it’s finished they actually had you recreate the motherboard and chips inside both the Game Boy and the cartridges, a very cool touch. And it’s a near exact replica in terms of scale, just a smidge smaller than the actual thing. That resemblance meant that holding it brought back muscle memory as well as the normal kind. The Game Boy was my introduction to gaming, my gateway to being a gamer. It was a huge part of my childhood. I still have my OG grey brick. It doesn’t work anymore but I refuse to get rid of it, it is still in a carrying case in my drawer. A big part of the reason I wanted the set was because of the affinity I still hold for that little handheld.
But as I looked at the completed Lego GameBoy and held it in my hands I realized how small the screen actually was. I remembered how hard it was to actually see the screen if the lighting around you wasn’t just right. I remembered the constant resource management of AA batteries. And I started thinking about how if I were to come across the Game Boy today I would find it cumbersome. This thing that was so important to me would now be seen as inconvenient compared to all the other options now available.
It gave me a feeling that is hard to describe. Nostalgia was some of it. But there was something else. Not a sadness, not really. More like a “look how far we’ve come” kind of moment. It’s weird to think that something I saw as so indispensable back then is now something that wouldn’t seem worth the effort. It felt like walking face first into a metaphor. The person I was 20, 10, even 5 years ago, the beliefs I had the way I carried myself, similarly seem so clunky and inelegant and yes problematic compared to who I am today. If I were to be confronted with the past versions of myself I suspect I would feel similarly to being confronted with this relic of gaming past. I expect that in another 10 years I am likely to look at my current self with the same sense of curious scrutiny.
One of the most important tenants of Buddhism is impermanence. Buddhism teaches that our refusal to accept the impermanence of all things, clinging to a desire for things to always be as they are, is the cause of suffering. I think there is some truth to that. And looking back at the Game Boy, comparing it to the Steam Decks of today, I can see that the changes over the years has resulted in both gains and loses. Games and gaming is not what it used to be. I am not who I used to be. That will continue to be the case until the very end. The only thing to do is work toward and hope that each iteration is in some way an improvement.