Hi there!
Your friendly neighborhood Phisto here with another collection of words. This is gonna be the most personal post I’ve ever made anywhere, so before I dive in I’d like to make a couple points.
- However you play Elite is fine. Like I said, personal post is personal.
- I really love this community, especially this ridiculously glorious forum, and my brain just won’t let me not write this. I hope it helps someone who perhaps needed edification, whether they knew it or not.
Alright, here we go!
Very recently I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. If you’re not down with the lingo it’s a medical condition where my body doesn’t deal with carbohydrates very well. Runs in my family. I was in danger, there was a hospital stay, and my life has been totally turned upside down. Being relatively young, in supposedly good health, and my spouse having a chronic illness too you can bet there’s been a lot of uncomfortable feelings these past few weeks. This is a raw deal I didn’t ask for and that no one deserves, no bones about it.
Now I’m not looking for any sympathy. If there was a time to get Type 1 Diabetes this is it. I'm in the prime of my life. Modern medicine is ridiculously awesome. Beyond that, my family and friends are an incredible source of support and I’m going to be just fine in every way that matters. However, I’d like to share the following with all of you.
As I lay there the first night in the hospital, going through all kinds of tests and getting poked with more needles than I’d ever had in my life, I knew instinctively what lay ahead. Diabetes didn’t care about my feelings, my life, or who I thought I was. Everything was going to be different now and I had one choice:
Get good at living with my condition or die.
Is this dramatic? Yeah. Is it true? Goddamn right it is. What the heck does this have to do with Elite?
This game is special to me because it’s taught me some very valuable lessons on failure, struggle, and accomplishing your goals despite overwhelming opposition. Whether that’s been PvP, BGS wars, or what have you the imaginary universe we all romp around in doesn’t care about you or your feelings. For me, the lessons have been eerily similar to what I thought in that hospital bed. The stakes aren't the same, obviously, but it's really the same kind of thing.
Get good at playing the game or lose. Get good at living with my condition or die.
And you know what? I’m thankful for that. Maybe it’s not the coolest or most mature way to learn these lessons, but I don’t care. I’ve learned them and will leverage them as hard as I can for what lies ahead. And you know what?
So can you.
The film
Captain Marvel has been an enormous amount of comfort and strength to me. As the title character struggles she realizes one very important thing:
we’re only human. That ability to get up
over and over and over again no matter how many times we get knocked down may be the greatest damn virtue we have as a species.
Time to wrap this up. Fact of the matter is I’ve been living my life with one hand tied behind my back. If I thought I was blazing my own trail before?
Heh. See you out there!
