Memories conjure up ghosts in distant places.
About once a year, I fire up my old Xbox 360 and revisit multiplayer maps from Halo 2, Halo 3, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. These four games are the ones I spent the most time playing during my childhood (age 8-15). Many hours were spent playing online with friends or solo, messing around on Forge, being competitive in multiplayer, or chasing the elusive tactical nuke. Many good times were had on every map, and on every map I have at least one distinct memory.
But going to these maps so many years, even decades, later causes nostalgic pangs as I realize just how old and forgotten these are. It feels like these maps are real, but in an incredibly remote location that hasn't been touched in years, gathering dust and rust and cobwebs, only accessible by those with the systems that still support the older generation's titles.
It also feels like I'm all alone, like there's another place in the same universe that's the center of all the fighting and action and this place has moved on from its 15 minutes of fame.
Amongst all the emotion I see the ghosts. I stand there and see the transparent players running to and fro, shooting at each other. I hear me and my friends chatting and laughing and coordinating and scheming and insulting. I'm briefly brought back to the age in my life where I played those games, an age of few responsibilities and substantial freedom of time.
You are living in a long ago forgotten era. Time has moved on without you, like everyone else. Despite this fact, the world you knew five, six, or ten years ago are still in tact. No further decayed or maintained than the day you and everyone else left it.
It's all still there waiting for you.
Video games aren't the only mechanism by which I see ghosts.
I see ghosts when the environment is right. Sunny weather and blazing hot temperatures invoke memories just as much as overcast and muggy days do. Combine that with the correct location and a matrix of possible memories is created. I see ghosts when listening to music. I hear songs of my past and am transported back to a distinct memory or period in my life, reliving the moment and with it the same emotions, regardless of how long ago it was.
I see ghosts when eating and drinking and smelling. Honey butter chicken biscuits take me back to late night Whataburger runs and whiskey to late nights in a friend's backyard.
The ghosts are a welcome occurrence. They evoke fond memories from days past and a variety of emotions ranging from happy to warm to proud. But immediately behind the positive is the realization that these moments, these ghosts, are in the past and will never return. Replication is both practically, and in some cases, literally, impossible.
This two-sided coin turns the nostalgia into a cost-benefit situation of sorts. Is the cost (the negative realization) worth the benefit (the positive emotion)? Is there a way to guarantee that the net result is positive for both memories that have been made, but also for ones that will be made in the future?