SourceNostalgia
Remember the movies and the tv shows, and the games you grew up with? One movie that I distinctly remember from my childhood is “Small Soldiers”. Our school had organized a movie watching class for all the kids, and watching all the toys move and talk I had my mind blown as a kid. That is how I got into playing with GI Joe’s and Hot wheels (although I didn’t own many of them I spent hours at toy stores looking at them).
In middle school, I discovered Age of Empires thanks to a school friend. We used to hangout a lot after school, and he had a demo version of AoE 3, which he got from a computer magazine called Chip. I was just blown away by the game I had never seen a game like that before. And I still remember the soundtrack, what a great soundtrack. That is also how I got into computer magazines (later Digit) to get demo versions of games! They ultimately were responsible for all of the interesting things I learned about technology over the years I was growing up. I got into linux because of the free CDs that used to come with the magazines.
At some point I also started collecting Autocar and MotoGP magazine (I used to be such a big Valentino Rossi fan, I had cutouts of his Yamaha bike). He was a big influence of me learning to ride my cycle no hands! At the time I lived in Ujjain, a small city so the only place that had those magazines was the railway station which I biked to every month to get, and I don’t think my father had any idea I was doing that at the time.
Then when I was in middle school, my sister gifted me a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone. I was already watching the moves and quickly read all of the rest. When the last book was released my mom requested her colleague at the time to stand in a line in Indore (nearby major city) to get a original copy for me. And then other kids in the colony came and asked if they could read it, lol.
I can remember distinct periods in my life where I was obsessed with different things. There is a certain underlying pattern to those though, and I think it is the one of novelty. When I see an area I haven’t explored I feel compelled to explore it as thoroughly as possible. Now there are infinite things in the world, and I definitely don’t get excited about everything. I do have a certain fixed pattern of prioritizing the things I want to explore. Most times they are motivated by other things going on in my life, and what’s in the media, some article that I read about a person being excited about something.
I definitely have trouble sticking to things, and I very easily move on and glide to the next thing, and erase the old thing from my memory. Novelty is great! But there are never enough things you can explore, and at some point the excitement starts wearing off. The initial rush of discovering something new now doesn’t give you that joy. Also you start losing certain parts of your identity, since they are always in flux, maybe because going deep in something requires sticking to it. Blogging is one of those things. I used to love love blogging, just the thought of expressing myself brought joy to me, it has a strong sense of creativity and individuality.
Looking at the history of my blog, it started in 2012 on tumblr as “thegreyd.tumblr.com”. I have no recollection of naming it The Grey Doodle. “This is the official blog of a rising teen web developer, designer, programmer, blogger.” I’m laughing as I read that.
So folks once in a while go back and look at the things you used to do, open old closets, memory boxes and look inside. You will smile, you will find things that still bring you joy.