a world that never changes
choosing presence over speed
There’s a saying in the Minecraft community that you never really stop playing Minecraft — you just take a break.
This last week, I redownloaded Minecraft.
A game that first released in 2009 when I was too young to acknowledge what a computer was. A game that became core to my motor and memory in 2012. A game that became my much-needed third space in 2020 in a world where everything had to close. A game which experienced episodes of play across 2021-2023 with high school friends, university friends, online servers that I had connection to and of course, occasional single-player worlds.
And most recently, a game I redownloaded in 2025, a few days after the blockbuster release (pun intended) of Jack Black’s A Minecraft Movie.
The simplicity of starting over
Even for someone who hadn’t played a video game in a while, the muscle memory returned almost instantly.
As I loaded into my randomly generated seed, years of Minecraft knowledge swam back into my working memory, brimming with aspirations on the spectacular things I could build in my new world. I got straight to work, the same way every other single-player Minecraft world starts: punch a tree, get some wood, craft stone tools and set up shelter before nightfall.
For over a decade, my day one base always follows the same concept: a tiny shack carved into the side of the nearest hill with a crafting table, furnace, more torches than necessary and a staircase to the bottom of the earth.
Between these digital walls, I lead an unobtrusive, renewable, open-ended life.
Gather whatever supplies I need. Keep my belly well-satiated. Built to my heart’s content. Yes, the Minecraft world has achievements and novelties to obtain, but in the case of a single-player world played entirely in your own time — there are no overarching goals other than the ones you have set for yourself.
And when you’re not playing — your dog sits, your wheat waits, your arrows hover expectantly in the air.
Your Minecraft World waits patiently for your return.
No rush, whatsoever.
Choosing presence over speed
I know what I subscribe to. I know what pitfalls I fall into.
It doesn’t make them any easier to avoid.
Underpinning my optimistic tenet of intentionality is the pessimistic surge of urgency.
Everything I do: from the time I spend, to the food I eat, to the words I speak, to the classes I sign up to — must be laced with intention, must serve a short-term or long-term gain. My decisions must lead to progression. My actions must be balanced. I must be better than yesterday, in one way or another, or the whole day is a write-off and everything is for naught.
This is urgency, masquerading as ambition, intentionality and even hustle culture. It is not the meaningful, internal locus of control, take-destiny-by-the-balls kind of urgency — but the restless, anxious, procrastination-stricken, nothing-I-do-will-ever-be-enough kind of urgency with all of the drawbacks of working too hard but none of its benefits.
On good days, I can acknowledge the progress I’ve made even if my to-do list still contains a few unchecked boxes.
On bad days, even after I’ve made significant progress on everything I had wanted, I bash myself for not instantaneously zeroing out my backlog.
On great days, I can relax and breathe and let the serenity flow through me like a piping hot bath.
On terrible days, even my rest is underpinned by a need to be efficient — I count the minutes I spend on the bed, tossing and turning in an attempt to fit two hours of sleep in fifteen minutes.
Is this exclusive to my generation or has it always been the case? That disastrous, encroaching feeling that slowing down is not only impractical, but life-threatening; that if we stopped swimming, we would sink like a sack of bricks.
Something about this blocky kid’s game from 2009 contrasts that line of thinking.
When I slash mobs with a sword, level a forest with an axe, build a cute design on my roof, harvest wheat via my hands toss carrots at pigs, build a fence around a horse or hold left-click for 9.4 seconds because I placed an obsidian block in the wrong spot — it is, to me, an active choice for slowness.
Slowness over urgency.
Presence over speed.
It’s a bit like writing in a paper journal over typing into a notes app, or using a regular alarm clock as opposed to my iPhone. It’s like walking up the stairs instead of the elevator or going for a walk as opposed to a drive. It’s eating on a dining table instead of my desk, working through a formula by hand or making chicken stock from scratch.
It’s opting for the more friction-filled, manual things over our automatic defaults. It is opting for slowness, to be immersed and contained within the moment, over the efficiency of getting to what’s next.
Loading up this game and choosing to spend my precious time in it — It is choosing presence over speed, in a world that often chooses otherwise.
Like meeting a childhood friend
The last time I played Minecraft seriously was in Version 1.15, where the newest thing they introduced were bees.
Yeah. Bees.
As a today, it is in Version 1.21 and I have no clue what’s been added since.
A few days in, after establishing my primary base of operations, a stone villa overlooking what I’ve now named Bienvenido Village — I sent my character running ten minutes westward to find what sat beyond the horizon (and to hopefully find water, because my spawn was far from any rivers, lakes or oceans).
As I hiked over the peak of a mountain, I saw a river — with something incredible, unfamiliar and wondorous, right across it: a village encased in a sakura tree haven.
It reminded me, of course, of Japan — when I had touched down at Osaka Airport in 2023 just as Japanese borders opened for my first ever trip with friends.
It reminded me if my recent trip to the Central Coast, standing Long Jetty Wharf, creviced between where the sky met the sea.
It whirled me back to when I discovered a Minecraft village for the first time, thinking the villagers’ awkward grunts and poorly-clipped structured were the coolest thing in the world. It reminded me of discovering lava in my Pocket Edition world and walking through ice spike, jungle and mesa biomes like I was part of Microsoft default wallpaper.
And for a brief second, in my twenty-five-year-old body who’s certainly not old but slowly becoming more jaded, I felt a pang of nostalgia — a warm, childish curiosity that could melt a crystallised heart.
Between 1.15 to 1.21, there was so much more to discover. I didn’t know I could sink and freeze in snow. I had only just discovered the Ancient City and the Warden that lurked inside. I’m aware of the Nether upgrades, that there were more wood types and mobs and structures that made the world more alive — and I have yet to discover it through my own volition. There is so, so much to discover.
And old classics that I haven’t revisited in so long.
Like the Ender Dragon who to this day, I have not defeated legitimately in a single-player survival world.
Then again, I might never beat the Ender Dragon.
I might not even visit The End.
In this world, which I have deemed my ‘Forever World’, I get to play at my own pace.
Away from responsibilities.
Away from adults.
Away from the so-called ‘right way to play’.
Away from finances.
Away from career.
Away from the terrifying (yet exciting!) things that make up my future.
It’s a story of my own making, a little like this blog — but instead of my notes app into Scrivener into editing and publishing through Substack; it is via the in-game Book & Quill, kept upon a Lectern inside the aforementioned stone villa.
Should I get tired of the world and decide to never log in again, I know that it’s only temporary — if the urge ticks again, I’ll be able to log right back in and say hello to my dogs, cats, and that annoying Villager who keeps intruding my quarters.
And if I decide I wanted to start anew instead — instead of starting a new world, I’d package up all my belongings and hit /tp Merdeka_ x y z, dropping my avatar several thousand blocks away to start anew.
Perhaps one day, Sav in 20XX will come across the remains of Sav in 2025 — and the memories would rush back like meeting a childhood friend.
