Reset

 Of the variant hobbies I've cycled through over the years, gaming is the oldest and most constant of them all. I've been gaming since...well, since I was pretty young. Nearly 30 years if I can make an estimate. I don't remember exactly when my father bought it, but we had a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) for some time. That was my portal into the world of video games. The system came packaged with a single cartridge, which was Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt. I don't remember what childlike awe I had for games, but I'm sure I was to some level blown away. Here was something I could see on my TV, but I could control it. I made Mario walk (or run) across the level. I made him jump. I made him swim. I made him smash goombas and koopas. I made him shoot freaking fire. What is cooler than that?

Later on my dad bought more games for the system. Batman, based on the 1989 blockbuster superhero movie of the same name, was really cool. At the time I was really getting into Batman, mostly because of the movie. In Batman I could play as the Dark Knight himself. I had the ability to punch enemies into dust. I could jump between walls. And of course, there were three different Bat-gadgets at my disposal. I watched my dad play it a lot because he was way better than me at the time. I feel like I kinda learned how to navigate and play an old NES game because I watched him do it. He died a lot, and watching as a kid, you learn a lot. 

As time went on, more systems came out with better graphics. I had the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), I had the GameBoy, I had the Nintendo 64. Later I moved away from just Nintendo and played Playstation and Xbox. The systems may have changed but my love for games remained the same. 

As I grew older, I wasn't sure if I continued to play video games because it was a nostalgic, comfort thing. Yes, that is certainly part of it. Is it that I could be Batman, or Superman, or Mario, or Sonic, or James Bond or that I could fight dragons, command armies, swing swords, shoot guns, drive fast cars, fly a ship, or save the world? Well, yes, that was part of it, too. Video games are immersive. Unlike books and other art mediums, I had the control. I controlled how the hero won, how the story played out. Games allowed me to sink into the world and escape for...many, many hours. And my "hard work" always paid off. The world was saved. The people were happy. I was thanked for doing the task laid out in the game. I was appreciated and recognized. 

The most overlooked, underrated feature to video games, however, is the "Reset" button. Stuck? Reset. Things not going your way? Reset. Need to change the game from "Medium" or "Hard" to "Easy"? Reset. On older consoles, there was an actual reset button. At any point, you could hit that bad boy. Didn't need to pause and navigate a menu, you could just hit "reset" and in seconds you were back at the title screen and you could start things fresh. 

I bring all this up because, probably like most anyone else, I wish life had a reset button. Reset and change the difficulty level. Reset and start over at your last save right before that boss battle. Reset and change the stats and attributes of your character. Reset just to play the easy first levels of the game just before it became unforgivingly difficult. It's been said, "Be careful what you wish for", but I almost wish I could hit reset on this year. Hit reset because, although it's been grueling and taxing on numerous levels, I still believe there were so many opportunities for me personally to be better. I did not take that time or effort in hindsight. I may have "learned" some things, but I didn't benefit myself or anyone else. This year could have been more of a victory than it has been.

So, what do we do? Try to do better. Try to apply what we've learned, which, as I grow up and grow older, have only realized I do a very poor job of applying. I also do a very poor job of remembering. This gets me into trouble, and then I wind up on a site like this and ramble for a few paragraphs about video games and how reset buttons are great but also metaphorical. 

2021 is in 3 weeks, and that'll be as close as I'll get to a reset button. Hopefully I can start applying and remembering, because I certainly can't reset and change my character at this point.