JUSTIN’S NOT-SO-INTERESTING LIFE

All of us have moments in our lives that set us off into our own unique interests. Usually this happens to us in our formative years when we are very young and impressionable.

For my dad, he latched onto Lego sets, airplane models, and airports. He used building blocks to construct airports, planes, and rockets. Fast-forward fifty years, and he runs Commercial Space regulation for the Federal Aviation Administration.

For my sister, she dabbled with science kits and art. Now she teaches science and paints. I’m looking at one of her paintings right now in my office. It’s of a fox.

For me, I can trace my moment to 1999. Christmas morning. That summer, my dad purchased a Gateway 2000 computer—back when Gateway marketed itself in those black-and-white cow boxes—and as part of that purchase, he received a demo disk of a video game that would go on to change my life: Age of Empires II.

After playing the demo, I was hooked. As Christmas approached, my grandparents asked my cousin and I what we wanted, and we both requested the full version of Age of Empires II. I still recall opening the box on Christmas and playing my first random map with my cousin, Matt. I had named myself Justin the Just and, after reading the history pages associated with the civilizations you could play, I settled on the Byzantine Empire. Mostly because their most famous emperor was named Justinian.

And so began my love for history. I read everything I could find about the Middle Ages. While my friends goofed off in study hall at middle school, I checked out books from the library about the Crusades. Here, I got really into Runciman, specifically his telling of the Fall of Constantinople. From there, I began reading historical fiction. Viking adventures, major battles, siege warfare—you name it, I was reading it. My obsession grew, and I began to imagine what it would be like to tell my own stories as part of history.

The first piece of fiction I ever wrote dealt with a Byzantine foot soldier marching toward a castle in the Middle East. He died when he took an arrow to the throat.

My writing obsession expanded into online roleplay.

The next major milestone in this journey also involved a video game (are you catching a pattern here?) This time, it was the notorious MMORPG known as Star Wars Galaxies. I played this game for 9 years where I met hundreds of players. The game immersed me in a galaxy of traversable planets. I would spend countless hours in cantinas, chatting it up with space pirates and off-duty stormtroopers. We’d gather groups and venture off into the wilds of Dathomir in search of Rancors, or maybe we’d dare the Dune Sea in the hopes of seeing a Krayt Dragon.

I roleplayed in this game for years, and it’s here that I began to grow my skills as a writer. Collaborating with so many other writers helped hone me and push me to new heights. The sandbox nature of the game fostered my imagination and fed my creativity. I wrote so many short stories, journals, and even the beginnings of novels.

Years later, I published my first book. I still roleplay. I still read history. I still write.

Experiences shape our lives.

One writer famously said “we become what we pay attention to.”

I’ll be the first to admit that video gaming creates addictive problems in youth (I was one). I don’t game anymore. But would I change my experiences? No, I don’t think I would.

So, to Age of Empires II and Star Wars Galaxies: thank you. Thank you for making me the nerd I am today.

Let’s turn it around on you. What key moments or experiences in your life shaped who you became?