2003-09-25 - 10:48 p.m.

I am a founding member of the Nintendo Generation. Those folks who have only the vaguest memories of life before video games. We have the rare privilege of being old enough to have seen the beginning of the console game explosion but young enough (and, to be fair, reclusive enough), that any time before that just doesn’t matter.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I know one major problem has come up in my life as a result of that rare distinction. Now, as I finally have to admit to myself and the world that I’m an adult (but never a grown-up), I also find myself with goals and aspirations my childhood never prepared me to find. I am always looking for the treasure chest or Old Man in a Cloak to tell me or give me what I need and I’m just now learning those things simply don’t exist to be found.

While it doesn’t surprise me, deep down it still seems somehow unfair that I don't have an old guide to tell me, “To get the $1000 you need to invest in the stock market, you must fight the giant crab. Here, take this bow and these silver arrows to aid you.” I can’t find parchments saying, “The key to your dream apartment lies at the heart of the Black Forest.” No ancient inscriptions telling me “Solve this riddle and ensure victory for the Red Sox.” No potions or heart containers, no fire plants, throwing stars, invisibility cloaks, conveniently placed plates of mutton or treasure chests wait for me to stumble across them. Hell, if you live in Boston, you don’t even get so much as a useful map.

Now, to be clear, I’m not complaining that life is too hard. Far from it. Obviously, I don’t have to dodge fireballs and spiked eggs, fight dragons and the undead, or leap bottomless gorges. That is not my problem. My problem is I don’t get to choose if I do those things or not. I don’t get to decide between living the safe comfortable life and a week of hell followed by untold fortunes. I don’t get any of that. No quick but brutal fixes.

All I get, after what advances I do make, is a little dude in a mushroom hat telling me shit like, “Sorry, but your best friend is in another country!” So I do the only thing I know how to do and search for my next challenge.