It seems it's made a comeback this year. I remember getting on my XBOX world after school and playing with my friends. The sense of hiraeth I feel when listening to the Minecraft soundtrack is overwhelming. I feel as if I'm transported back in time, back to a point where I was a different person. Every time I listen to C418's wondrous masterpiece of a soundtrack, nostalgia engulfs me, swallowing me whole like a wave.
I still have my original Minecraft world saved on my old XBOX 360. It's been sitting there for years and years, unchanged. I remember building a small sandstone island in the middle of a bay, connected to the mainland by a tunnel. I remember lining the opening of the tunnel with sugarcane, wiping metaphorical sweat off my forehead, proud of my accomplishment. I remember building a Nether portal on the roof of my house and placing paintings on the walls. I remember trying to build an animal cage with fences, but at the time, fences weren't stackable, so I had to do the trick where you built a wall of dirt and replaced the layers with fences, top to bottom. I remember taming a wolf and naming him, though I don't quite remember his name. The dismal call for home echoes in the back of my mind. The longing for a time long past has never ceased. It beckons me like a beacon, calling me forward, reminding me of who I once was. The naivety and innocence of my past self resonates with those distant memories locked away in the depths of my essence. The desire to be back to a home that was never mine, yet always has been, engorges me.
When I first created that world, I thought nothing of it. I just thought it to be like any other world. All this game is is a string of ones and zeroes, not unlike anything else; but somehow, it is completely and utterly unique to anything else I've played. Nothing can match Minecraft. In my opinion, there is one major thing that sets this beautiful game apart from other sandbox games: humanity. There is a sense of humanity deeply embedded in the game. Our having the freedom to do anything, coupled with the desire to expand and explore and the determination and will of humans, connects us to this game on a level unmatched. The resonance of our soul with the idea of this game is profound.
There's more to it, too: the soundtrack. C418's talent and insight into the human essence gave us the most beautiful soundtrack we could possibly have. It is perfect for such a serene game as Minecraft. Minecraft's soundtrack is simple yet complex, light yet heavy, apathetic yet emotional. Minecraft's soundtrack IS humanity. It is the utter feeling of despair we all encounter, the overwhelming sense of joy we get from day to day, the dismal sadness we feel when we're not feeling well, the primal hunger of exploration, the strong sense of determination we feel when we don't know something. The soundtrack is in the background, yet it's somehow in your face at the same time. It reinforces the human mind's thirst for knowledge.
The game gives us the catalyst to begin that quest. Block by block, the human consciousness comes into focus. One thing sets us apart from all other creatures: abstract thinking. Minecraft IS abstract thinking in the sense that anything can represent anything. Nothing stands in your way to create what you want. The ineffable emotion of compassion in all of humanity is what binds us together. This intangible longing for home, in the same way that Minecraft makes us long for a place that was never our home, is out in the stars.
The cosmos is our final frontier, and it beckons us closer. That is Minecraft. It's even more apparent in the End Poem. The End Poem is a beautiful abstract representation of what humanity desires and what it must become. We must awaken from the "short dream" of bliss and enter the "long dream" of reality in the stars. We must all work together to reach out.
Thank you, C418, for this beautiful musical composure. Thank you, Mojang, for the wondrous game you've given us.
Feel free to copy and paste this to replace your chunk. ^^
