As a foreword, I must first say that with the iPad, I hope that it will allow me to blog more often since why I skip posts (yes, I skip them, it's not that I have nothing to post) is because I'm too lazy to go to the com and hammer it all out.
Anyway, it's not that I'm getting forgetful or anything, but rather, it seems to be a rather long time isn't it? 20 years. Quite short to my parents of course, considering their age, but actually, I daresay that this 20 years, which is their most recent 20 as well, has probably the most amount of activity compared to any other 20 years they lived through.
How do we guage how much time has passed? Besides a clock for accurate measurement, our sense of time relies on the number of memories we form. Sleeping hardly forms any memories and thus we always seem to wake up immediately aft we sleep. (unless of course you tend to dream alot, then it'll definitely seem longer. More on time perception within dreams some other time.) So if you form an extemely high number of memories across a period of time, then that time will definitely pass slower for you.
The last 20 years has been really congested with changes. My country has transformed, the consumer electronics industry has expanded greatly and achieved great household penetration level (not to mention cellphones have just kept getting better and better.) The one that made me write this post, however, is MapleStory.
In just 6 years, the amount of changes to the game play is astounding. This is not just in terms of the hard coded maps, character classes, and game dynamics (which are a hell lot), but also the economy, and the community. The feel of the MapleStory world is entirely different, for better or for worse (I'd say mostly worse), so much so that I feel myself longing for the olden days of Maple. Indeed, "The Olden Days of MapleStory". Sounds ancient isn't it? But the Maplers who were, and maybe still are, with me will understand. I kind of get why old people cherish the olden days of their youth... The pace of change is just too fast for them to handle (in a sense) and leaves them uncomfortable and longing to go back to a familiar environment. Just imagine, in only 6 years, MapleStory has gotten me longing for that already... Just think about how fast the change would have to be, such that a youth, like me, who is used to blazingly fast changes in the real world, feels that he has been outpaced by developments in the game.
Indeed, it's possible to feel old, even though one is young...