2023-09-03 A large glass of depressed nostalgia

I miss the days of Windows on DOS, of the early internet, of blue screens of death and recovery floppies, of listening to the modem connecting and watching JPEGs load line by line, of the joy of discovery, of the first Linux CDs, of working offline with actual documentation, samples, and physical books.

I miss the days of watching Xena and MacGyver while running a fever, of reading in bed with a crappy incan torch, of running around shooting crooked arrows with handmade bows, of having so much energy that sleep sounded like a chore rather than tiredness being my default state.

I miss the days of having neither worries nor regrets, before puberty struck and grief over multiple deaths delivered the coup de grĂ¢ce.

I do not particularly miss the lack of agency, and things were in many respects objectively worse, but I miss waking up and looking forward to each new day.