Beating Minecraft and What It Means to Me

On my 7th birthday, I got Minecraft for the Xbox 360. I played it more then almost any other game I had, I played it with all my friends and we all loved it.

But I had never beaten the game.

Years and years of trying (honestly too hard) to beat it, I never did, and eventually my family got a PS4, and we got Minecraft on there. that was still being updated, unlike the 360 which stopped getting them. The game got harder and the feeling of the game changed for me. me at 12 and 13 years old felt like I was relegated to building small oak wood houses because nothing felt the same.

My original disk for Minecraft sadly broke, and only recently did my little brother actually get a disk for the 360. I have Minecraft on my computer but I never made a world, I only played hunger games and such. I started my world on Xbox 360 for the first time In almost years. 

What felt so different about this week long play through is that I took my time and waited, and decided not to try and rush things like I always did. Progression came so naturally and then it hit me. One of my biggest flaws is hitting me in the fucking teeth. I can't stand delayed gratification, I'm too impatient and I'm self aware about that, and this is a direct test to that natural instinct to crave more, which is another one of my biggest flaws, test taking.

Slowly progressing the way I did was therapeutic. I built a nice house by a village with like 12 villagers and 4 houses (which was cozied up next to 2 mansions). I got 3 dogs, unnamed, I got my trusty motherfucking steed, Pistol Bobcat the Donkey, and a horse, squiggly line. I made small local farms to trade in the local villager economy, I built shrines to gods that I made up for the world, I paraded my religion around with Pistol Bobcat and it spread across the land. I used Pistol Bobcat to herd Llamas around the world for no reason, they cant hold chests! I slowly started going into mines and clearing out bigger things I found when I got full iron gear.  I raided the 2 mansions and got like 10 totems of undying.

I found diamonds, started enchanting, got to the nether, found the stronghold AND got the e materials for the eyes of ender while playing the game casually and slowly. Trading paper, leather and gold for emeralds to buy ender pearls and only letting myself go to the nether when I at least had some diamond armor. I eventually finished the eyes and went to the end, and I beat the dragon.

So what does this mean to me? I've beaten many a video game, and not completed many more, but Minecraft always felt like the one that everyone got that I just couldn't. What this means is I can overcome problems I've had for 10 years now. If I learned anything in guitar its you have to be okay with failing, sometimes for years and that the time you put in comes out eventually, and that's something that I didn't understand in my previous playthroughs.

As I beat the dragon I read the words that scrolled by and actually read them. I'd heard them before in videos, I've "heard"  the meaning behind it. But actually reading that entire screen of text made me feel something that hasn't crossed me in a long time. Meloncholy. Out of all the experiences I have with the entire game throughout the past 10 years, I hadn't ever read those words so deeply.  having this game gently tell me that this achievement wasn't going to be enough outside of the dream I've made up in a bunch of zeros and ones, I had to reckon that maybe things wont always be worth it for the outside world.

I decided that it is worth it. In the end, I learned something out of the entire experience, 10 years culminated into one lesson that I had to probably learn right now in this stage in life. Even if it wasn't worth it, I had fun, no?

And what's next for this world?

Pistol Bobcat and Kay in... Honey, I Fell in Lava, rated PG-13