Why Core Memories?
Human memory inevitably fades with time. I’m archiving my personal history to preserve it, but more importantly, because I believe the unconventional lessons I've learned along the way might actually be beneficial to the people around me in the future. Consider this my blueprint of trial, error, and growth.
Looking back, my entire upbringing can be distilled into two physical items. They were my escape hatches from a highly protective household, and they shaped exactly how I view the world today.
Part 1: The First PC (The Digital Proving Ground)
My first computer was a relic of a different era—complete with a loud CD drive, floppy disks, and the agonizing screech of a dial-up connection.
Because the internet back then was charged by the second, staying online was a luxury. A mere 30-minute session cost the equivalent of four Happy Meals. Consequently, I was forced to stay offline most of the time, which meant I had to explore every nook and cranny of the Windows operating system just to keep myself entertained. I played pirated arcade games through emulators and lost hours to Warcraft long before DotA even existed.
Three or four years later, broadband arrived, and with it came the golden age of MMOs: RuneScape, Habbo Hotel, MapleStory, and GunBound. Looking back at how I played those games, I learned a lot about my own psychology:
RuneScape: I was honestly too young and impatient for it. Mindlessly killing chickens and cutting down virtual trees just wasn't my thing.
Habbo Hotel: This was my true hustle. I spent a year grinding, trading, and e-begging, turning $0 into a $100 digital empire—until I was permanently banned for exploiting a few bugs.
GunBound & MapleStory: I relied heavily on aimbots, trainers, and hacks. In MapleStory, I leveled up three times faster than any of my peers.
Ultimately, gaming taught me an essential truth about myself: Games get incredibly boring the moment you bot or hack everything. Habbo Hotel was the only one I couldn't easily exploit, and because I was just a kid with zero real-world social skills, I didn't care about the community; I only cared about the daily profit margins.
Eventually, that era ended. I moved on to Counter-Strike, Blackshot, and League of Legends (I was always too intimidated by DotA). To this day, I’m admittedly not very good at those games unless I’m using some sort of tool or script.
The Takeaway: My parents were incredibly protective and kept me locked away at home. While the computer initially sucked up all my time and yielded no traditional success, the endless hours spent on it gave me digital street smarts. Navigating hacking forums and online economies taught me how to separate the fake from the real, and how to find the actual "deal" beneath the surface.
Part 2: The Haro X1 BMX (The Great Escape)
The second item that changed my life arrived when I turned 16: my first Haro X1 BMX.
Up until that point, my entire childhood existence was a rigid loop: Home, School, Tuition, and the occasional family outing. I was incredibly introverted. Before the bike, I had exactly one friend—my next-door neighbor. We used to hang out every single day, sitting in front of the apartment lift lobby, playing Pokémon cards.
The BMX changed everything. For the first time in my life, I was part of a crew.
[Home -> School -> Tuition]
│
(Age 16: Haro X1)
▼
[Friday Night Rides & The Real World]
Suddenly, I was going out every day with other riders. We would ride every Friday until the dead of night, just hanging out and talking. I completely stopped playing video games. It was an absolute eye-opener because it forced me to interact with people who were older, rougher, and more mature. It introduced me to entirely new perspectives on how other people lived their lives.
Through BMX, I developed the social skills I desperately lacked, which allowed me to make friends much easier later in life. It taught me to start choosing the path of most resistance.
The Takeaway: My parents were always terrified that I would mix with the "wrong crowd." Ironically, through the BMX scene, I ended up hanging out with the most punk kids in the area. They smoked cigarettes and engaged in petty shoplifting. But because I had spent so much time observing systems objectively online, I never felt pressured to join in. I didn't see how smoking improved their riding performance; instead, I was just baffled by their poor decision-making.
Final Thoughts
The PC taught me how systems work; the BMX taught me how humans work.
Seeing that punk crowd at 16 was my first real realization that humans are profoundly imperfect. We don't operate on pure logic—more often than not, we choose the emotional path over the logical one. Balancing the digital cynicism I learned from the screen with the social empathy I learned on the asphalt made me exactly who I am today.
