Leveling Up in Real Life
- By Clayton
- November 13, 2014
- Comments Off on Leveling Up in Real Life
A shocking thing has happened over the last couple of weeks. I’ve become bored with life.
Well, not necessarily life itself, just my life as it is now.
According to Louis C.K., I’m not allowed to be bored. But it’s for the very reason that he gives that I’m not allowed to be bored for which I am bored. There is too much amazingness in the world, and I haven’t seen it all. Apparently all of this is normal though, because there is a great quote on exactly my stage of life by none other than…. Louis C.K. again…
I’m 25. I’m restless. And I’m supposed to be restless.
I have a wanderlust, I guess. I have energy with no way to direct it. I’m a fly who should be flying out of a window, but instead I’m just banging my head on the glass trying to figure out why I can see the world but some invisible force keeps stopping me.
As a kid, I absolutely loved playing Pokemon. (Who am I kidding, I still love it. I never stopped) The character designs and art styles enthralled my imagination. I played the games obsessively, could memorize all 151 of them in order ( and now that there are so many more… I’ve learned to evaluate types based on their color. I can still hold my own), and could draw most of them.
There’s a point to this. Two points, actually.
The first point is the plot.
I was crazed over the idea that someone could just go out, explore, and adventure through paths and cities and towns. I loved the idea that people were super friendly and excited to talk to the new, young passerby that stopped to say hello. It taught me just how wonderful and hopeful and open the world could be. I wish that was real. I often wonder how I can make that part of life real. Sadly, too much of the world is designed by too many people, where the Pokémon world was designed by a single team specifically for the player to enjoy the world. But maybe there’s hope. There are absolutely places worth exploring, and most definitely people worth stopping by to say hello and learn their story. Maybe I can even help out some of them.
Here’s the second point: You can level up.
In the game, you determine the strength and abilities of the Pokémon by their level. This is one thing that the creators got absolutely right: the levels at which the Pokémon evolve. The primary starting Pokémon all follow the same trope: you get them at level 5, at level 16 they evolve once, and their final (I understand Mega evolutions, but they weren’t always around) evolution occurs at level 32. I don’t know if it’s meant to fit into real life, but let’s try anyway.
Now, the ages will differ for every individual, but the point remains: You finally start developing a uniqueness around age 5 (the first, formative years are rarely remembered and at that point you’re just a potato with a pulse). At the age of 16 you become a lot more independent and capable (driving, dating, and other life choices that don’t start with d). So I’m assuming that at the age of 32, you finally become exactly who you’ve been becoming all those years. This means that at 25, I’m developing my core set of attacks, and now just working on the leveling up and progressing.
Whenever I would play the games, I would always work to have my entire team at least a couple of levels above the trainers I was around. It made the battles easier. When my Pokémon got around level 25-27 I would stop the storyline to go train them and level them up until they went ahead and hit their final evolution. To do this, I would have to go just past where the storyline was currently going. I had to go off on my own to gain experience.
So it seems that’s where I am. I’m to the point now where it’s my time to go out, just past where the story is taking me, and experience things. It’s one of the most annoying things to have to grind levels out slowly because the challenges around you provide so little in terms of usable experience.
So that’s it the. I’ve leveled up just enough to be at the point where I’m capable of leveling up more. I have to indulge the wanderlust fully to see what my final evolution will reveal. I hope it’s a dragon-type. That’d be awesome.
