The Truth about Friendship and other Life Lessons
On August 22, 1999, a shy, generally reserved girl keyed the word "EarthBound" into a search engine just for fun. Unlike most girls her age, she was a gamer, and EarthBound was her RPG of choice. On this hot summer day, her mother beckoned for her to come outside and enjoy the sunshine, but the girl declined; she’d just located a site that appeared to be worth looking into. It was called EarthBound.Net; she fell in love with it almost instantly. On that very day, she decided to register on the forums at the website; always one to think things through, she spent a while pondering a user name but found her creativity to be lacking on this August afternoon. Eventually, she decided on a name: PSI322.
Well, that’s how my story began; that’s how I first came to be an EarthBounder. This article isn’t just about my story, however; it’s about the stories of hundreds of people, boys and girls, children and adults and those in between. It’s about the stories of myself and my fellow EarthBounders; it’s about how one site changed so many lives in so many ways.
If everyone concentrates really hard, I think we can all recall the days when we were new to this site, currently known as Starmen.Net. It may be easier for some than for others; some EarthBounders have been here since the very beginning, some joined in somewhere in the middle, and some just registered last week, I know. Life for the site’s "newbies," as they are called, always seems intimidating to begin with, doesn’t it? Everyone around seems so much smarter than you and has more friends than you do; everyone knows each other, and for a split second, you wonder if you should’ve come here in the first place. I remember my first days here well; it basically involved innocently reading through a few of the forums and trying hard not to say anything that would seem out of place or cause any commotion. I figured that eventually, I’d get the hang of navigating these forums and the rest of the site, and together, they would provide an excellent outlet for discussion about EarthBound for SNES. Little did I know the effect this place would have on my life; little does any newbie know how this place will change them.
We EarthBounders have stuck by our site through the good times and the bad. It’s been a long and winding road, I’ll admit, to get where we are now; the site’s history, if I’m not mistaken, has been marked by celebrations and disappointments, laughter and tears, triumphs and tragedies. This, of course, is the nature of life; after all, isn’t life just one giant adventure, one quest for happiness in a less-than-perfect world? Right now, I could write this article about how much I loved EarthBound.Net then and how much I love Starmen.Net presently, and how sad it makes me to think of how much this site, and more importantly, this community has had to go through. I could; I’d have no trouble doing it either, believe me. But I won’t, for I prefer to measure the value of Starmen.Net not in how many triumphs it has seen and the number of tragedies it has faced, but in what myself and the other EarthBounders have gotten out of it: life lessons.
In the time that I’ve been here, I have seen myself grow from a newbie on the forums to a regular forum user, site surfer, and chatter. All the while, I have remained astonished at the splendor that was and is the EarthBound community. Through this site, I’ve met some of the most amazing people; these are people that I respect deeply, people that I enjoy working with, and best of all, people who are some of the best friends I’ve ever had. All of you, my friends and colleagues, never cease to stun me with your displays of support for each other, your constant encouragement of your fellow EarthBounders, and most of all, the strength of the bonds of friendship which you share. You all mean so much to me; just by letting me know you’re there, you’ve made my life that much easier to live, to be sure. Somehow, I know that I can win if I’ve got friends like you on my side, and that alone makes me smile every day. I have learned that the three ideals of courage, wisdom, and friendship do exist in their purest forms; they are ever-present inside all of you, my fellow EarthBounders.
The tremendous sense of unity isn’t the only thing about this site that has affected me, however. Every time I come here, I see more and more clearly the lessons which being here has taught me. I have learned that no obstacle is too great to overcome, even if it seems an impossible task to defeat it. I have learned that everyone is important when they’re part of a whole; I have learned that the spirit of teamwork is present in the solutions to all the little perils of everyday life and that no one can hold you down when you’re part of something great. I have learned that nothing can boost your sense of pride more than feeling that you belong to something special. I have learned that when you feel something in your heart, something so strong that you can’t even put into words, no one can take it away, no matter how hard they try or how much they try to hurt you; I have learned that wounds heal faster when there are friends around to ease the pain. I have learned that each and every person in this world has some kind of potential and that everyone deserves at least chance. Similarly, I have learned that there are people in this world who are not true EarthBounders, people who abuse their chance and will abuse you if you let them; I have learned that no one can keep you down without your consent.
Finally, I have learned that friendship is more important than anything in this world; that in the end, only friendship can make you feel that special something inside that you know is just right, that only a friend’s soothing words know how to help heal a broken heart, and that laughter feels twice as good when you’ve got a friend to share it with. I have learned that friendship is easy to find if you only know where to look, and I have learned that Starmen.Net is a very good place to begin. Thank you, all of you, for always being there, for letting me be a part of something this grand, and for ultimately changing my life for the better. Nothing makes me more proud than to stand up, smiling, and declare: "I, Juliana Tritone, am an EarthBounder for life."
On August 22, 1999, a shy, generally reserved girl keyed the word "EarthBound" into a search engine just for fun. Unlike most girls her age, she was a gamer, and EarthBound was her RPG of choice. On this hot summer day, her mother beckoned for her to come outside and enjoy the sunshine, but the girl declined; she’d just located a site that appeared to be worth looking into. It was called EarthBound.Net; she fell in love with it almost instantly. On that very day, she decided to register on the forums at the website; always one to think things through, she spent a while pondering a user name but found her creativity to be lacking on this August afternoon. Eventually, she decided on a name: PSI322.
Well, that’s how my story began; that’s how I first came to be an EarthBounder. This article isn’t just about my story, however; it’s about the stories of hundreds of people, boys and girls, children and adults and those in between. It’s about the stories of myself and my fellow EarthBounders; it’s about how one site changed so many lives in so many ways.
If everyone concentrates really hard, I think we can all recall the days when we were new to this site, currently known as Starmen.Net. It may be easier for some than for others; some EarthBounders have been here since the very beginning, some joined in somewhere in the middle, and some just registered last week, I know. Life for the site’s "newbies," as they are called, always seems intimidating to begin with, doesn’t it? Everyone around seems so much smarter than you and has more friends than you do; everyone knows each other, and for a split second, you wonder if you should’ve come here in the first place. I remember my first days here well; it basically involved innocently reading through a few of the forums and trying hard not to say anything that would seem out of place or cause any commotion. I figured that eventually, I’d get the hang of navigating these forums and the rest of the site, and together, they would provide an excellent outlet for discussion about EarthBound for SNES. Little did I know the effect this place would have on my life; little does any newbie know how this place will change them.
We EarthBounders have stuck by our site through the good times and the bad. It’s been a long and winding road, I’ll admit, to get where we are now; the site’s history, if I’m not mistaken, has been marked by celebrations and disappointments, laughter and tears, triumphs and tragedies. This, of course, is the nature of life; after all, isn’t life just one giant adventure, one quest for happiness in a less-than-perfect world? Right now, I could write this article about how much I loved EarthBound.Net then and how much I love Starmen.Net presently, and how sad it makes me to think of how much this site, and more importantly, this community has had to go through. I could; I’d have no trouble doing it either, believe me. But I won’t, for I prefer to measure the value of Starmen.Net not in how many triumphs it has seen and the number of tragedies it has faced, but in what myself and the other EarthBounders have gotten out of it: life lessons.
In the time that I’ve been here, I have seen myself grow from a newbie on the forums to a regular forum user, site surfer, and chatter. All the while, I have remained astonished at the splendor that was and is the EarthBound community. Through this site, I’ve met some of the most amazing people; these are people that I respect deeply, people that I enjoy working with, and best of all, people who are some of the best friends I’ve ever had. All of you, my friends and colleagues, never cease to stun me with your displays of support for each other, your constant encouragement of your fellow EarthBounders, and most of all, the strength of the bonds of friendship which you share. You all mean so much to me; just by letting me know you’re there, you’ve made my life that much easier to live, to be sure. Somehow, I know that I can win if I’ve got friends like you on my side, and that alone makes me smile every day. I have learned that the three ideals of courage, wisdom, and friendship do exist in their purest forms; they are ever-present inside all of you, my fellow EarthBounders.
The tremendous sense of unity isn’t the only thing about this site that has affected me, however. Every time I come here, I see more and more clearly the lessons which being here has taught me. I have learned that no obstacle is too great to overcome, even if it seems an impossible task to defeat it. I have learned that everyone is important when they’re part of a whole; I have learned that the spirit of teamwork is present in the solutions to all the little perils of everyday life and that no one can hold you down when you’re part of something great. I have learned that nothing can boost your sense of pride more than feeling that you belong to something special. I have learned that when you feel something in your heart, something so strong that you can’t even put into words, no one can take it away, no matter how hard they try or how much they try to hurt you; I have learned that wounds heal faster when there are friends around to ease the pain. I have learned that each and every person in this world has some kind of potential and that everyone deserves at least chance. Similarly, I have learned that there are people in this world who are not true EarthBounders, people who abuse their chance and will abuse you if you let them; I have learned that no one can keep you down without your consent.
Finally, I have learned that friendship is more important than anything in this world; that in the end, only friendship can make you feel that special something inside that you know is just right, that only a friend’s soothing words know how to help heal a broken heart, and that laughter feels twice as good when you’ve got a friend to share it with. I have learned that friendship is easy to find if you only know where to look, and I have learned that Starmen.Net is a very good place to begin. Thank you, all of you, for always being there, for letting me be a part of something this grand, and for ultimately changing my life for the better. Nothing makes me more proud than to stand up, smiling, and declare: "I, Juliana Tritone, am an EarthBounder for life."
