A good friend of mine asked me this question today, on my 30th birthday. Still weird to write that I’m 30, especially when I often feel 12. But this question was an interesting one, and while I can’t know exactly what I was thinking, I have some idea of what I expected and didn’t expect. It’s a nice thought to ponder, and I encourage you to ponder it.
I didn’t expect to be working in the games industry, co-founding a company, or doing any work related to running a business at all. At 20, I would have been in cégep (the school we have here in Quebec between high school and university) and just switching out of music and into sciences. My goal at that point was to become an architect, to design work and living spaces that affected people on a daily basis, without their knowledge of it. The dream of creating a universe in which a person can explore and go about their daily life, the idea that each person who connects with this world I’ve created will have a different reaction to it… this was what I really liked about architecture. After that description, it shouldn’t surprise anyone (myself included) that I ended up in video games.
At 20, I thought that meditation and mindfulness and subjectivity of experience was too spiritual and hippie-dippie for me. I’m certainly not what you’d call a “spiritual” person now, and science is still the absolute only thing that I try to use to describe our experience in this world, but I think that I’m connected with myself in a way that I never could have been ten years ago. In fact, I think all of that has happened in the last year or so, thanks to some great people around me.
I would have thought that by now I would be married, and maybe thinking about children. I didn’t imagine some perfect suburban house somewhere with a backyard and a white picket fence—I always assumed I’d be living in a smaller space, closer to downtown. But I did picture myself married like my brother was a few years back. While we’re on the topic of homes and families, I didn’t picture myself owning a condo, but hey here we are. Here I am, I guess. Hopefully you’re not here in my condo right now.
Overall, I didn’t think that I would be in the spot that I’m in, and I’m extremely grateful for it. I also know now that if I were still my 20 year old self, I wouldn’t have the capacity to be grateful for it, because I didn’t unlock that part of life (that part of the brain?) yet. Besides being happy that I’ve made it 30 years on this earth without any major diseases, without any traumatic injuries, and without, well, dying (knock on wood), I’m also happy with how I’ve changed over the last ten years. I think if you asked my friends, I wouldn’t be noticeably different from how I was ten years ago, and that’s fine. Under the hood there’s more going on, and I’m glad for it.
How about you? What did ten-years-ago you think that you’d be like ten years in the future?
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