I used to be a bit of a gamer. Mind you, this was back in the day when Pong was all the rage and the very first next generation games, games like Pac Man and Donkey Kong, were jaw droppers.
I admit that I was a bit addicted to these gee-whizzers. I would regularly find my way to the arcade in the Renton Highlands, the one tucked behind A&H Drugs. There, my high school buddies and I would shove quarters into all the newest arcade games, then engage in a little serious-ass air hockey. This was back in the day when air hockey was a bit dangerous. The machines had a lot of air power in them, so much so that the hard plastic puck would take air and fly right towards your head with all the deliberate speed your opponent could muster in his serve.
I am highly competitive. Not necessarily in the classic way. I can be bested in any game and lose gracefully, except for that one Parcheesi game when a little girl blocked me forever with a couple of elephants, not as a strategy, but because she didn’t understand the game. I kept losing pieces to the little girl’s mother over and over, so eventually the game had to come to an end, the board, dice and playing pieces flying through the air as I “threw” the game.
I’m not proud of that moment. But hey, in the heat of battle, odd things happen. Thankfully, arcade machines are difficult to throw, even though at times it would have been nice to be able to do so.
It’s not that I was obsessed with getting the highest score. Like others, I did like to see the initials ‘RCZ’ in the top 10 on the game screen now and then. But it wasn’t the real motivation behind my obsessive play.
Instead, I was obsessed with leveling up. Leveling up brought new play to you. New screens of adventure with even greater challenges, risks, and hopefully, rewards.
Leveling up was the bomb. The score was secondary to getting to ever-higher levels. Quarter after quarter was poured into these machines in an effort to move to those elusive upper levels, knowing that if you failed, you had to go back to square one, or should I say, Level 1.
It dawned on me a couple days ago that life is really a lot like those video games. We face our own giant centipedes, gorillas and ghosts in our lives. We grab the extra power dots when we can, leap over barrels of doom coming our way and battle daily, all in an effort to level up in life.
To some extent I think that’s the real purpose of living, leveling up. Sure, the score is nice to keep. If you like, you can even equate the score as dollars and kid yourself that that is what’s really important. But just like that video game, you can lose it in a moment and have to start all over. The scoreboard goes to zero in a flash and you are screwed.
However, when you’re focused on leveling up, you might have to start all over again, but at least you know how to get through the initial levels quickly without wasting time. It takes no time at all to get through the lower levels. Experience has already been gained, which no one can take away with you.
What’s funny in life is that I’ve known, and even know, people who don’t bother leveling up. They aren’t interested in getting to the next level. Instead, they start over again and again, worrying only about the score, not using what they’ve learned to level up. They just keep ramming their heads against the same wall, letting the barrels or ghosts get to them until they either have to start over or they run out of quarters and it’s GAME OVER.
I don’t really get it. I mean, what’s the point of living life if you never want to try to master it? Again, I’m not talking about running up the score, but mastering each level that you find yourself on.
That’s where the fun is. As you know, I’ve started over plenty of times: in love, in relationships, in work, in places to live – the list goes on. Hell, I’ve had to start from scratch more times than I can count. Just when things appeared to be going well, I found myself back at that dreaded Level 1 and have to start all over again.
Does it bother me? Hell no! I just pick up where I started, trying to apply all the lessons I learned during my previous attempts to level up, and go at it all over again. The game itself will never defeat me, until I finally stop drawing a breath here on this planet, and with any luck, I will find that I have several more lives left on the screen to play instead of getting a final GAME OVER.
I profess that I never understand those who never want to move up a level or two or three. They never challenge themselves to try something new or different. They are merely content to stay at the same level they have always been at or at a level that they found comfortable. They are reluctant, for whatever reason, to learn something new, take a calculated risk, look their greatest fears right in the eye, and try to better their lives, if even a little bit.
Me? I’ll continue to play the classic game of life. I have a pocket full of quarters and I continue to pop them in the slot, seeing what’s on that ever-elusive next level. Will I continue to level up? Who knows? And really, who cares? As I said, tacking numbers on the scoreboard isn’t why I keep playing. It’s that chance to move to a new level in life, one that is unfamiliar to me, somewhat scary, ever challenging and almost always worth the effort.
I think that’s what life is all about, continually challenging oneself and improving one’s lot in life, if only to become wiser in understanding how the world works and who you are as a player in this game that fleetingly short but rarely dull.
In the Emerald City, keeping away from the Game Over screen,
– Robb