This little mound of earth is as close as we can get to the final resting place of Julius Caesar. It's the mound upon which his corpse was cremated. Whatever survived the burning was scattered when barbarians sacked the temple. Lamentable, but sic transit gloria mundi. If ancients paid his corpse divine honors, we moderns have kept up the custom as best we can. It's what he would have wanted. We may not believe in the genius of his house, but we believe in the genius of his will-to-power. The gods change, but the worth-ship remains.
I got my Super Nintendo Entertainment System when I was eleven years old. That's a couple years after it first came out. The occasion was a little dramatic: to celebrate the end of a two-and-a-half year course of treatment for cancer. I had no idea that it would be waiting for me at home after the final doctors visit. It was a nice spring day, the trees were waving gently in the breeze outside the bay windows. With a cup of tea resting on the coffee table, I set down to play. What was that first game? It was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past . Around twenty years later, my SNES still works as does that Zelda cartridge. It's been a long way from boyhood in Southern Connecticut to manhood in North Houston, but I'm still playing. Why am I still playing? There were stretches when I didn't. Many times, I've just been too busy. There were also seasons when it felt embarrassing to still be playing video games....
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