ever get the feeling..

you ever get that feeling, like when you're playing Metroid?  you know, that moment you walk into a room and the music gets all quiet and eerie, and just know that something bad is about to go down.  its like at any moment Kraid can pop outta nowhere or the SA-X will come in to thrash you.

 

Even the NES knows how to creep you out

or what about that feeling you get when you're playing Battletoads?  (ok... so there's probably only like three of you who know what i'm talking about).  i'm talking about after you play the jetbike level 50 times.  after you get through the ridiculous surfing or the snake pit.  it comes right around the time you get flatted by a random gigantic gear rolling around through the water pipes.  or when the clinger-winger beats you around a corner and runs you over for the 20th time.  then the dark queen laughs at your face and Professor T. Bird mocks your incompetence, and you're like... really?

your out of lives.  your continues are gone.  and what do you do?  start over!? play through it again from the beginning!?

are you insane? maybe.  are you trying to prove that you're awesome?  beating the jet bikes already proved that.  you know the game is pretty much impossible.  but you keep fighting on.  you know your chances of beating it without cheating are so low that even C3-PO couldn't calculate the odds.  yet you give another fighting rat the big bad boot. 

i have beat this level many times.  but i have never beat this game.

what is it that keeps us going, even though we might feel like an alien will pop out to kill us an any moment?  how do we keep ourselves fighting, no matter how many times we crash into those random pink walls or fall into the pit of mysterious yellow orbs?

i dunno. i don't really know what it is that keeps us going again and again.  but it's something we need to hold onto.

recently i have been trying to get better at being brave.  at standing up for myself.  at not letting people walk all over me.  i wouldn't say its the greatest of my traits, but i have been improving.  it takes some stretching, it takes some discomfort.

but that's how it is.  being brave aint being fearless.  its about standing up and fighting on even when you're scared out of your mind.  its what this kid does from Legend of Zelda

well all know that Link is pretty much fearless.  he's got the Triforce of Courage, he knows how to use a sword like a pro, there really aint nothing stopping him from saving the world.  and then we got this kid, (his name is Collin) who is probably scared out of his freaking head, watching these monsters come in to take over, and he steps it up.  like a man.  he won't ever use a sword, he can't ever conquer a dungeon, and he isn't ever gonna face it off with Ganondorf.  but what he did was no less brave than all the heroic stuff Link does.

we can be brave no matter what life throws at us.  even if we can't beat the game, even if we can't pass the second level.  we don't always have to win to face it like a champ.

and if we do win, the fight becomes that much more worth the effort.  if we don't then we will be that much more ready to be brave when our time to win does come.