80s parents stereotypically trashed video games as brain-rotting wastes of time. But the best games of that time did contain nuggets of wisdom, one of the foremost being “It’s dangerous to go alone!”
A notorious game mechanic of 2D era adventure games involved starting the main character without the main tool he needed to win. The Legend of Zelda set this trend by throwing its protagonist Link into the wilds of Hyrule completely unarmed.
As a result, the play testers were forced to compare notes and work together just to find the most basic equipment. This spirit of collaboration carried them through the whole adventure and turned a single-player game into a cooperative experience.
The slow but accelerating collapse of Western society is retroactively turning the Zelda sword hunt into an apt allegory for young men trying to carve out a living amid the chaos. If you are under fifty, the world you were raised to survive in no longer exists. Many feel like the world is crumbing around them, leaving them stranded in a strange place without the tools they need to survive.
What can Zoomers, Millennials, and Ys do in such a disorienting situation? As in so many other aspects of life, The Legend of Zelda offers the answer.
You’ve got to find your sword.
In the context of post-Western post-America, your sword is the tool that lets you interact with this new environment so as to draw resources from it. Instead of a physical weapon, your sword represents the skills and knowledge required to survive – and even flourish – in this crumbling social order.
What is your skill? There are as many answers as there are people. And like Link, each of us acquires an inventory of useful skills and knowledge as we go along. Each new skill and piece of information is another tool in your survival toolbox that will increase your chance of success.
How do you gain this knowledge? Again, the answer differs from person to person. But again, Zelda gives us a clue. Learn from the example of the play testers who shared their knowledge and experience so all of them could win. Whatever your path in life, it is certain that cultivating a trusted group of likeminded peers will make the going easier. Man sharpens man as iron sharpens iron.
The godless elites who have seized control of the world hate us, and they fear the prospect of their subjects gathering together to share knowledge. That alone is reason enough to network with sympathetic people in your field of interest.
Earlier I stated that everyone will have a different specific answer to the challenges that beset him, but that rule admits of one exception. Every knowledge-seeker must first establish a relationship with Jesus Christ, who is the Divine Logos and the source of all good.
It’s dangerous to go alone. Seek Him first, make a decision, and the rest will be added.
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I have been on a path of vocational discernment for a while now. One of the things I have learned along the way that God, in His infinite goodness and boundless creativity, has made each of us for something specific, and that what He has made each of us to be and to do will prove to be a source of deep joy for us and a profound blessing to others as it helps us grow in grace and holiness. I view who we are meant to be and what we are meant to do as two sides of the same coin.
To borrow from Aristotle, as the Angelic Doctor is wont to do, we are defined by what we do.
If you can play the piano will skill, ease, and pleasure, you are a pianist.
The same principle applies to one’s state in life and, if given one, his vocation.