Lessons I've learnt from Minecraft

 Minecraft was probably the first video game I ever loved. I remember when we first got a family desktop computer, it came with a Microsoft trial version of the game. For sixty minutes at a time, my brother and I would squeeze side by side, arguing with each other as one person manned the keyboard and another the mouse, as we walked around the blocky world and punched whatever we set our sights on. The first time the day turned into night, the square sun setting and a square moon rising, the very first enemy mobs began to spawn. And the first one we encountered – the first one we died to, in fact, looked to a fresh pre-teen high living in the age of the internet creepypasta phenomenon, just like Slenderman.

Took this screenshot exploring the latest update on creative mode. I like to think they're distant cousins. 

Tall. Long limbs, completely pitch black save for glowing purple eyes. The power to teleport. While now the Enderman is recognizable to any twelve-year-old with internet access, to me it seemed like some creepy glitch. Suddenly, Minecraft was a horror game. Skeletons, zombies, creepers - every night, they’d spawn and we’d hide in a dirt hole, too scared to risk life and try outrunning them. When I got access to YouTube, I learnt of the early Minecraft creepypastas: Entity 303, Null, and Herobrine – who, low-key, I’m still scared of till this day. Honestly, I miss those early internet days of my pre-teen years, scrolling on the SCP wiki for hours, rewatching “100% true Herobrine Sightings”, binging Game Theory FNAF videos until I considered myself a lore expert… Though I agree that internet ARGs are a lot more polished these days, nothing quite compares to the fun and camp of the 2010s.

But back to Minecraft. It took a while for me to realize that, no, Minecraft wasn’t a horror game. It was instead a sandbox game, which means its an open world where you can literally mine and craft nearly everything (hence the name, lol). In the 2020s, my friends helped me install a fake Minecraft installer, we played on a multiplayer server so we could pretend like we were hanging out together. It was thanks to them that I slowly started to understand how the game worked – how stone tools led to iron, then to diamond. How zombie villagers could be cured and then give you lower prices in gratitude. The multi-step process of beating the game – entering the nether, getting blaze rods, slaying endermen… And, most importantly, that you could create the most charming little houses.

I wouldn’t consider myself a gamer. Though I enjoy watching others play video games, I lack experience in them myself. I’ve dabbled in Stardew Valley, Overcooked, and currently have Jurassic World Evolution installed but no time to play it. However, Minecraft is the one game I’ve never gave up on. I find myself returning to it with every new update, and I’ve even managed to maintain the same survival world for a few years now, most recently defeating the Wither and working on building a megabase.

Peep the drip :D

The thing about my life, is that everything is very fast paced. I am a woman of many interests, so as soon as one project ends another 3 have already begun in my head. Combine that with the nature of my medical degree, with exams every 9-10 weeks, and you come out with someone who’s always relying on a tight-knit schedule to make sure she gets through the day. Google calendar, Todoist, and especially my notes app on my phone are the only things keeping me from going insane somedays. So the nature of Minecraft appealed to me – a world where I had the entire creative freedom to do how I pleased, that could be logged into and saved at any time of the day, and music and aesthetics that were pleasing to the eyes and ears.

So yes. List of lifesavers: Google calendar, Todoist, my notes app, and Minecraft.

Lesson #1: It’s okay to stop and collect the flowers.

I’m notorious for always wanting to find the perfect place for a base in Minecraft before I place a bed. I’ve explored for nearly a thousand blocks on previous worlds before getting to an area that I truly liked. Minecraft is full of a variety of biomes – no two worlds generated will ever be the same. Personally, I like cherry blossom biomes, taiga biomes, and flower forests for bases. Though I’ve lived in a jungle, on an island, and in a savannah biome before too.

Getting to this “perfect” location, however, is a journey that involves a lot of walking. Especially so early in game, without access to fast travel methods. If I’m lucky enough, maybe I’ll find a saddle and horse – but navigating with those is a bit tricky, so I prefer to be on my feet. However, this is never a boring journey. The game is very rewarding when you take the time to explore the hidden corners instead of just flying over them – you might find a hidden waterfall, a massive, exposed cave with diamonds at the bottom, or a tucked away village in the middle of a forest.

One of the oldest screenshots I have of a survival world base, surrounded by flowers.

Life is inherently a journey. In a world that is hyperfocused on constant self-improvement, on glowing up overnight, dropping weight in two weeks, becoming a millionaire in a month – Minecraft offers a reminder to me that the destination is not the point. Because what’s the point of the perfect land to start building on when you’ve only got wooden tools and a potato in your inventory? I know my goal is to “find somewhere to build a base” or “graduate medical school”, but if I only focus on that big goal I’m going to miss out on the joys of life. Like joining Christian fellowship once every two weeks, like celebrating my friend’s birthdays the week after exams, like watching movies in my room with a blanket fort covering me.

In Minecraft, you don’t feel guilty for exploring, because exploring reaps rewards – food, diamonds, flowers, new wood types, animal friends. Though the rewards are not as palpable when I’m doing real-world side quests, they nevertheless have a beneficial effect on the quality of my mental state. So, despite the fast-paced life the world insists I should be living, I would much rather stop and collect enough flowers that my inventory is full of them.

Lesson #2: Sometimes using cheats is ok.

I KNOW HOW THAT SOUNDS. But hear me out.

Growing up, I always knew I had a problem with my memory. I was a forgetful child – I’d forget homework due dates, forget to pass something to a friend, forget to inform my mom about a field trip. It was a problem that was brought up repeatedly on report card days by my headmistress: Joy needs to buck up. Urgh. Just writing that makes me want to vomit. See, folks, it’s not like I have amnesia. I was a child – a creative, confident, and slightly crazy child who wanted to see and do everything that was #awesome. Hearing someone say those words over and over again gave my confidence a dent that took years to recover from. I wonder sometimes, why my headmistress insisted that the solution was just to “pay more attention” instead of, I don’t know, making a to-do list? Writing down all my due dates? Learning about time management instead of being expected to perform it perfectly?

As an (almost) adult, I still struggle with the same issue. My memory is not perfect – but that’s no longer a flaw. It’s just another aspect of my wonderful God-given personality that I need to work with. So, I write grocery lists on sticky notes and schedule my entire life down to what time I need to eat lunch in google calendar. I colour code everything a give all my subject matching emojis. I stick a giant whiteboard calendar on my wall and draw stars and flowers around it, writing down birthdays and test dates and long weekends where I can travel home to see my family.

Not everyone plays Minecraft the same way. Some people can defeat the final boss within minutes of starting a world. Some people can build towering skyscrapers and design entire cities. Some people collect the rarest items in the game and display them in museums. Me? I’m not going to pretend like I’m a pro gamer. I play with Keep Inventory on. I sometimes open my world to LAN so I can use creative mode to get myself out of a sticky situation. I still die to creepers despite having full netherite armour. Some people are very good at this game, and some people (like me) want to just make a potato farm and watch the sun set over the ocean.

This picture makes me impossibly happy

I used to feel guilty for using to do lists. Because they felt like cheating. Wasn’t I supposed to remember everything? To always remember my top priorities of the day, keep track of all my appointments. When I first started using these apps, it all felt like I was cheating on an exam paper – at any point, someone was going to find out and accuse me of not being good enough to do it on my own. But Minecraft changed my perspective on things – who made the rule that every single person on earth has to play the game of life the exact same way?

So to my fellow forgetful folks out there: It’s ok to play with Keep Inventory on. People who tell you otherwise are just jealous because they didn’t know you could add custom colours to google calendar :)

Lesson #3: Never trust an influencer

I was in the Minecraft YouTube Fandom (aka MCYT) back in 2020, and those of you who were there with me know exactly what this section will be about. See, back in 2020 a group of these content creators became famous after all playing on a multiplayer server together, known as the Dream SMP. At the time, it was a fun way to experience a well-told, funny, and dramatic story complete with lore, slightly inappropriate jokes, and livestreams that broke world records.

So it’s very, very funny that, five years later, more than half of the people on that server have been cancelled.

Honestly I should be cancelled for this house. What insane person builds a roof from honey blocks??

I’m not going to go through each of the creators and what they’ve been accused of – that’s information you could easily find somewhere else. What I am going to say, is that back in the pandemic, I used to admire and look up to many of these creators. They were creative storytellers, using Minecraft in a way that felt novel to me. They were relatable – the youngest on the server were my age! They were inspiring – they spoke up about real-world issues and encouraged their audiences to do their best to make a difference.

Influencer culture is pervasive – everyone these days wants their five seconds of fame on the internet algorithm. I am not excluded from this; of course, I want my blog to reach more people and get more subscribers. But as the use of generative AI becomes harder to distinguish from a real human touch, as well as content creators not disclosing when their videos are being sponsored as they recommend a new product, its become more and more difficult to trust what I see online. The great Dream SMP cancellation of this year only solidified this realization for me – we can’t trust content creators to be their true, authentic selves on the internet anymore. And I don’t know why we expected them to be in the first place.

Lesson #4: Change is needed for growth.

As of late, I’ve begun to realize I’m having a bit of an identity crisis. I’ve been informed this is perfectly normal for a twenty (SCREAM) year old and is just part and parcel of the journey of life. Doesn’t mean I’m enjoying it. I’m so used to being sure of myself, but as time goes on I have to face new challenges and dilemmas, starting to have to form my own opinions about politics and friendships and even put down boundaries in places for things that initially seemed harmless to me. Introspectively, I’ve realized I’m changing a lot.

In a Minecraft world, once I’ve settled on the perfect location for a base, I go chop down trees and look up tutorials for cute cottage bases. But you can’t build something without breaking something that’s already present in the world, be that stone, grass, dirt, or even another villager’s house! In the same sense, I couldn’t build myself up to be a better person without breaking down some of the beliefs, doubts, and shame that I’ve been holding onto. And yes – in the process of building, things may look messy. My inventory will be too full to hold items. I might mess up and have to tear everything down and try again. I might have to step away from the problem and cry for a little bit. But it’s a process I know (eventually) will result in me making something that’s even more beautiful than I could have hoped.

MUSHROOM HOUSE! Built upon the remains of a villager house destroyed by a creeper explosion.

Just as change is an inherent part of playing Minecraft, change should also be an inherent part of our lives. For me, that means changing myself for the better, so I can make a positive impact on the world around me.

Lesson #5:  Life is incomplete without a vision board.

You might have heard the saying, “men are visual creatures”. Well, as a feminist I declare the statement is entirely incorrect. Human beings are visual creatures. There’s a reason our society places such importance on physical attractiveness, whether that be for good or not in the long run. The first form of social media I ever had was probably a Pinterest account – I have boards for all my interest. I save metric tons of fanart from my favourite movies and TV shows, as well as hairstyle inspo, paintings to copy, and recipes to try. I like customizing my desktop icons so they all look unique instead of blank folders. And of course, I’m the kind of girl who always has a vision board up by her desk.

Having a clear vision is important for building in Minecraft. The game is in first-person, so you don’t really get a bird’s eye view of your project while working on it. When I first played, I often would make buildings too small or too large for the land I had cleared or regret the placement of certain decorations after I’d built them. For my long-term survival world, my big project was transforming a village, a naturally generating structure in Minecraft – but I had no idea how to go about it. I ended up destroying too many houses and loosing all my villagers to zombies, save for two I managed to rescue. I didn’t have a clear vision, so I couldn’t plan the steps I needed to get there.

Aforementioned last two villagers after the great zombie killing spree

Current villager population after a lot of beds and bread making

I’ll be the first to admit that I have high expectations of myself – I want to do my very best and give 100%. Sometimes that results in two weeks of pure motivation and discipline followed by one week of slacking off and being burnt out. To avoid this, every year I make a tiny bucket list for myself. I list down all the fun stuff – like my 20^th birthday, or completing my 2^nd year of med school, as well as personal goals, like learning how to do a pull up or going to the gym more often. Having these goals helps remind me of my overall vision for my year (or even my month! I’ve starting doing monthly bucket lists and those have helped me keep track of my progress.) And just like Minecraft, sometimes I won’t see the progress I’ve made until I take a step back and look at my work from a different perspective.

When exploring an old world for this article, I discovered a little time capsule I made for myself from when I caught COVID in 2022

 

This was the room I quarantined in, accurate down to the bright pink walls and stripy curtains

Thank you for reading! I’ve always wanted to write a bit about my favourite game ever. I’m unfortunately still using the fake version of the game because cough cough, the real one is SO EXPENSIVE. Its definitely going to be one of my first “working adult” purchases. If anyone reading hasn’t played Minecraft before, I’d suggest trying it out! The learning curve isn’t as crazy as some other games, and there’s always creative mode if you don’t want to deal with creepers and inventory management.

And no, I have not watched A Minecraft Movie. Because I don’t really think anything is going to top “Finding Herobrine in Minecraft (Full Documentary) - 5 SIGHTINGS” from 2017.

Talk to you later world!

Joy (∩^o^)⊃━☆