I grew up in a rural area, in a dusty village with no electricity and very minimal public water – the main source of water was from a borehole – not the purest – salty and dehydrated me quite fast. Public water is still scarce, the roads are as dusty, if not worse, as they used to be. We only got electricity in 1998 – so that limited our entertainment options – we at least had a black and white TV – prior to the electricity, we relied on a car battery to power it up. When the battery was about to die, we would recharge it by placing it in a car and that was often followed by pushing the car for a kickstart – our fun with my friends and brothers. We would hope that a few kilometers of the car driving around would have us watch our favorite TV dramas and games shows at night.
My night time fun came from occasionally watching these tv dramas, game shows, playing my sisters’ card games and at times entering magazine competitions to win cars or millions – until today, my luck is still to come through 😊. Other than that, candlelit studying was a night time “treat”.
On a rare occasion, when budget allowed, we would go to a resort where there would be arcade games – I enjoyed the melodies from the arcade machines and every now and then I would play a game. To play the games, we had to buy tokens – and I always knew that the tokens would not come back.
Spending money on the tokens was in hope to be thrilled by the experience – which equated to value and satisfaction derived. But, because of my lack of practice and experience, not only with the arcades, but with the objectives of the games, I would be so anxious and worried about whether I would master the game from my minimal experience and prior observation. Despite not progressing to the next stages of all the games, I would continuously buy more tokens with the hope of improving in the next effort. The result was often the same – no progress – but a sense of great satisfaction and defeat at the same time.
I used to think that when older, tokens would leave me – but they have not, although their appeal is slightly different. Since 2021, I have heard of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Like those I used to buy for arcade games, I feel that they serve the same virtual reality purpose – an innate experience as opposed to a real one. I have recently heard of people buying property, access to an artist’s future performance which has not yet even been conceptualized, and many more things that are based on future predictions through NFTs.
My background, both from my arcades and professional experience, makes me a little skeptical about the values attached to NFTs – I feel I would be buying NFTs just to have a thrilling experience, with no melodies, but hope of deriving great value from them – uncertainty and anxiety remains on the same arcade games high.
I would love to learn more, what are your thoughts about NFTs?