bridgejumping

I had a very strange experience happen last night that brought back a variety of memories from my past. A few of us pooled some money together and bought an NES & N64 for the fun of it. The console arrived and last night was the first night that we got together to play. After a few minutes of trying to set up the system, we didn’t have the right components for the TV. This caused a minor delay as we ordered the proper part from Amazon. However, while trying to set up the Nintendo, it brought back precise memories on playing the system as a kid. The reason I’m using this idea for a post is that the way I remember the memories became clearer and clearer the more I used the machine 20 years later.

My memories in present day of playing Nintendo are all glorious occurrences. Touchdown passes to Drew Hill, swapping out Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles never getting past the rooftop, finding nuke, warp whistling past world 4, and getting bull rushed by Bald Bull. The TV was 96 inches, the graphics are crystal clear and the machine always works and has no load times. If I had never attempted to set up a Nintendo for the rest of my life, I would go on living in a false reality. Last night after attempting to set up the NES and getting to a point where we were blowing into the game crossing our fingers that the Tecmo Bunny (Adam called him a little buddy) popped up on the screen, I began to actually remember my childhood past memories.

There were good Nintendo games and there were bad Nintendo games. Some you’d put in the system and have no problems. Others you’d have to adjust, blow, and use every trick in the book to get to work. The TV I played on was a 17″ POS that you had to sit 6 inches from to see what the ant like characters on the screen were doing. Some games would be so hard that you’d never play them. At 10 years old it was most likely that you didn’t have the intellectual fortitude. Bayou Billy sticks out as one of those games. A testimonial to this point is that I played the Oregon Trail (Mac not NES obviously) for the first time since my childhood and floated my wagon down the river to close the game on my very first time through. The point is though that if I had never sat there last night blowing into the game, these memories would have been distorted forever. They’d still be my memories, but they wouldn’t be truth because I’d forgotten truth.

All NES talk aside, it brings up an interesting idea on what is the truth? The way I remember something is my truth, but your truth may be something completely different because you remember it differently. If two days ago I told you about my NES remembrance, it would have been completely different than the ideas I’ve put in this post. Is it better to remember things in a positive light even if it’s not the truth or to be disappointed with reality? Sort of follows the cliche “ignorance is bliss”. I think it’s important to keep in mind that everyone has a varying viewpoint and keeping an open mind for EVERYTHING is important. Living in the present is a weird thing when you compile so much information over a lifetime. Everything you’ve been through shapes you into what you are today. I just veered off on a tangent and am going to end this post before I force feed it with more mindless drivel.