Every once and awhile, I play a game at the exact time I need to play it.
A time when it will have the largest affect me because of where I am in life.
It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it becomes a part of who I am.
It makes me see things in a different light.
It happened when I played Shadow of the Colossus as a freshman in college during a time when
I so desperately wanted to hold onto the past—to hold on to being a kid, and the game showed
me that while the past is important, holding on too hard can be destructive.
It happened when I played Journey near the end of college during a time when I was getting
ready to move away, and while I played, my roomates came in and out of my room to join
me as I scaled the mountain while other players came in and out of my voyage to do the same,
and it helped remind that even though people won’t always be directly in my life, that
doesn’t make the time spent with them any less meaningful.
And most recently, it happened when I played Outer Wilds last year during a time when I
felt an immense need to figure everything out about my life but kept coming up short.
So let me tell you about it.
Outer Wilds sets itself up as a where the main purpose is to explore.
That starts with the rustic village on Timberhearth, then moves to the deep caves with zero gravity,
and eventually opens up to the wide expanse of space.
But the main goal of Outer Wilds doesn’t really become clear until the sun implodes
for the first time.
After being enveloped by a hauntingly beautiful supernova, memories of my journey flashed
before my eyes, and I woke up where I started: in front of a campfire, looking at the stars.
everything seemed to be the same except for the fact that now I had the knowledge of the
day I just lived.
Outer Wilds doesn’t give much explicit direction.
It lays a trail of breadcrumbs for players to follow, but there is no objective that
pops onto the screen saying what to do.
It is all self-directed.
And in that moment when I woke back in front of the campfire, I knew what I needed to do:
I needed to save the galaxy.
If video games have taught me anything, it's that no matter who you are, you have the power
to bring about great change.
If a plumber can save the galaxy, I can too.
So I got back on my ship and flew off with the simple ambition of stopping the sun from
imploding.
As it turns out though, saving the galaxy is harder than it looks.
The solar system of Outer Wilds has many places to explore, dangers to overcome, and mysteries
to work through.
Every answer leads to more questions, and it felt like the more I learned, the less
I knew.
Figuring everything out before running out of time and being sent back to the start is
impossible.
Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t save the galaxy in just one day.
And while at first this was a point of frustration, eventually I found solace in it.
Every time I met some sort of tragic demise and woke up back in front of the campfire
on Timberhearth, I told myself: It’s okay, you can’t save the galaxy in a day.
I wore these words like armor to deflect frustration.
Whether it was from flying into the sun on accident, or setting too many goals, causing
me to not properly finish any of them before running out of time or spending an entire
cycle flying around aimlessly looking for any sort of lead and not finding it, I told
myself: it’s okay, you can’t save the galaxy in a day.
It became my mantra, and anytime I felt discouraged, I’d lean on it.
It helped me take a step back from the enormous goal I had set for myself.
And when I focused less on saving the galaxy and more on just completing one thing at a
time, I found myself engaging much more with everything around me.
Instead of trying to rush to the solution, I was more willing to waste some time in order
to appreciate the galaxy I was trying so hard to save.
One loop I followed a probe that ultimately didn’t lead me to any answers, but as I
traveled into the middle of space, surrounded by both everything and nothing, I felt like
I was exactly where I needed to be.
One loop I just stayed on Timberhearth and explored every inch of the planet, just to
appreciate its beauty.
And on many loops, I found joy in singular tasks, knowing that even if I was only helping in small ways
trying to do anything is what mattered most.
Sometimes I wondered if I even could save the galaxy, but that didn't stop me.
Each day, I woke up in front of the campfire with new knowledge, and went off to
slowly answer questions and learn something new.
And it was around this point that I sat back in my chair and thought, “wait.
Why am I giving myself more grace in a video game than I do in my actual life?”
This past year has been a weird one for me.
After working for a few years in what I thought would be my lifelong career, I came to the
realization that it was making me miserable, so I went off to try something new.
And that sounds like it’d be exciting, but in reality, I spent more time worrying about
what was next than anything else.
I worried if my next job would make me happier than my last.
I worried if pursuing a new career would put me even further behind in life than I already
felt.
I worried if what I did next would make enough money so that when I’m old and weak, I could
stop worrying.
And once things on YouTube started to take form, I began worrying about that.
I worried if it would be a sustainable source of income, if people would like what I put
out next, if the entire site would shut down because of poor policy decisions.
I constantly worried about the future, and not just in how it related to my life.
I worried about all of the problems we are facing today and how they aren’t being addressed
quickly enough.
I worried about what the world will look like in 10 years.
I worried about what the world will look like in 30 years.
I worried if there might not be a world in 50 years
I worried
about saving the galaxy.
But you can’t save the galaxy in a day, and you definitely can’t save the galaxy
alone, and maybe you can’t save the galaxy at all.
And that’s okay.
It’s important to consider the future, it’s important to try to make things better, but
it’s also important to live in the present instead of the future.
We’re here now, and that is worth something.
Looking to the future often means looking past today, and I found myself so caught up
in what could happen that I didn’t appreciate all the things in my life that were happening.
Before I had time to celebrate anything, my mind was already on to the next thing.
I so often feel like I hold the weight of the galaxy on my shoulders.
Sometimes it is the weight of my future, sometimes it is the weight of the world’s future.
But it is too heavy to always hold, trying to will only lead to me not wanting to save
the galaxy at all.
Playing Outer Wilds helped ground me in that.
It reminded me that some days, I need to follow paths that make me happy even if they get
me nowhere, that some days I need to slow down and admire the beauty of where I’m
from, that some days just trying is enough.
And on the other end of it, its helped me remember that there will be days where it
feels like I’m stopped before I even start, where I set overly ambitious goals and am
unable to get everything done, where I have no idea what to do, so I do nothing.
And that’s okay.
I won’t lie and say that since playing Outer Wilds I’ve stopped putting the pressure
of the future on my shoulders.
I do.
All the time.
It’s really hard not to.
But now I at least am trying to disrupt that pattern of thought.
I sit back and remind myself that I can’t save the galaxy in a day.
But I can look at the things I've accomplished whether they be big or small, productive
or relaxing, and I can bring them with me as I wake up and live
in a new day