Wow, that brings back memories. Long nights, CRTs, that fresh and health-promoting smell of warm electronics in poorly ventilated spaces, microwaved garbage food, sugary drinks … not sure how my friends and I survived until adulthood.
I remember we could spend entire weeks in 4 player Doom 2 deathmatch during summer with my friends. We could spend an entire day just playing made-up scenarios where we tried to kite cyberdemons from one part of the map into another (an exercise which we called demon shepherding).
I fired up Doom 2 again on one of the many ports and it looks great, all the nice memories came flooding back, and yet it wasn't the same. It made me realize that the magic wasn't in the games, or the computers or the people. The magic was in us being a bunch of kids born into infinite curiosity and no (real) responsibilities. That magic unfortunately cannot be recreated in adult life.
Now if you spend an all-nighter on any hobby, your 30+ year old body will wake up feeling rubbish the next day. Do it 2-3 days in a row, and you'll feel like death.
I can afford any piece of hardware and any game my heart desires, my steam library numbers more than 200 games. I have played less than half of them, and less than a quarter to completion. It's the age old curse of aging :)
When you are young, you have time but no money. When you are old, you have money but no time.
And I did play a bunch of games 10-20-30 years after they were released and they still hold up. My limit seems to be around SNES-era graphics, before that it just feels too ugly and clunky for me.
Sure, many games just feel like any modern titles do everything better, but some play just fine if you can stomach some of the obsolete mechanics.
> I fired up Doom 2 again on one of the many ports and it looks great, all the nice memories came flooding back, and yet it wasn't the same. It made me realize that the magic wasn't in the games, or the computers or the people. The magic was in us being a bunch of kids born into infinite curiosity and no (real) responsibilities. That magic unfortunately cannot be recreated in adult life.
I thought about it a lot and come to conclusion that every new interesting experience bumps our "standard" up and so once you accumulate a ton of that it's just harder and harder to be wowed by new game, even if it is just fine, fun and plays nice. But me getting my first car in my 30s was still thrilling and I was giggling like mad so dunno about "kid" part. Yeah kids know shit all so everything new is exciting but that doesn't mean you can't find magic moments in the adulthood, just amount of work required is higher.
I've heard it described as a three-phase progression:
* Child -> Time and Energy, but no Money * Adult -> Energy and Money, but no Time * Elder -> Time and Money, but no Energy
(Where "Energy" is a short-hand including also physical capability and bodily health)
> Your 30+ year old body
Hey, wake up call, not just to parent commenter but anyone.
If you feel this way in your 30's chances are good you should probably spend more time focusing on your physical health. Start getting more exercise and working on your diet.
You don't need to go crazy, just make small improvements and try to stick with them as much as you can. Start simple: Go for a short walk in the morning when you get up. Cut back on refined sugars, alcohol and sugary drinks.
I'm in my early 30's and my capacity to push hard and be durable is stronger than ever. But I made small but steady steps on my diet and kept up a modicum of conditioning throughout my 20's. I love backpacking, so "durability" is something I'm very interested in.
For example, this weekend I was easily able to stay up and game with friends in their early to mid 20's(UFC 5 release) until the wee hours of the morning. I then slept curled up in a ball on the couch(it was cold and that position kept me warm) and bounced up first thing in the morning after like 3 hours of sleep feeling great.
I don't do things like that often because it runs counter to being healthy. Sleep is when your body repairs itself, and it is constantly taking damage. My experience also is that when you are young, you are just less in-tune with your body. By the time you are 30 most people are actually able to recognize how detrimental sleep deeprivation is in the moment.
I feel the same as OP. If I miss sleep I feel wrecked and I'm 34.
In your 30s, no matter what you do, your ability to recover starts to decline and you can no longer do stuff consequences free like before.
You say if yourself: as long as you get enough sleep most of the time, you can pull an all nighter and feel fine. Pull 3 in a row and throw in some drinking, and you'll note a sharp difference between 25 year old you and 35 year old you.
Genetics plays a huge role in this. Some people win the lottery. However, by your 40s you realize that some activities might simply be off limits. Repetitive back injuries from lifting too vigorously mean that you have to cut back on deadlifts. You get dehydrated more easily and the symptoms are worse. You need to watch your ankle after having twisted it too many times during football.
You have to accept it and move on. Some magic you had is lost, but you can usually replace it with other magic. You can't play 12h with your friends every day, but now you can afford a nice car for example, etc...
You can't go clubbing 5 days a row, but you have the focus to train for a marathon and finish it.
My post was about recognizing that the circumstances that make certain things possible when we are young simply disappear. Accept this and move on, there are other things that one can do.
Citation needed. Plenty of people only reach their physical peak at 35+. It's not too late!
> You have to accept it and move on
No, you don't. You can bounce back, but it requires effort. All I can say is it's better to learn early than when you are 65+ and just had major surgery that you need to bouce back from if you want to keep living a normal life.
Even my 18 year old self would have killed to feel like that.
But at 30 I couldn't walk a flight of stairs without pain, went to my doctor and was handed an exercise sheet for retirees and told off, and that was what finally got me to address my health, so there's still time to fix it for anyone who feels like that and still time to reach heights of strength and energy you didn't know we're possible.
I lapsed for multiple years in my early 40s, but even with that, after being back in the gym for just a few months I'm still for the most part, apart from a bit slower recovery, feeling better today at 48 than I did at 30, and I'm far stronger and with better endurance (though I still feel weak because I know how much I have lifted, and while Im easily at 5x+ the strength I had at 30, I am so far only back up to 60% of my peak)
At the heart computers can represent and transform complex structured data iteratively. That was new new 50 years ago.
Civilization 1 and 2 are still beyond awesome. Very playable and loveable games. I play Doom II now more than I did when I was a kid. Mortal Kombat 3 is the best. Windows 95 and 98 are likely the best Window GUI ever for me. Microsoft Office 4.0 is pretty fast on a 386 with 4 MB of RAM running Windows 3.1. At the age of 41 I've bought my first non-pirated version of Magic Carpet and now understand how to play this game. This game is freaking awesome. I can now afford to buy Sound Blaster AWE32 without asking my parents! IRC is still awesome. mIRC and EFNet still work!
My life rocks now! (Except web browsing.)
I use to play it a lot a year or two back, any map pack I could get installed, and then played each over again.