Liquid

Today was the "Official Foosball Banquet" for our club. We got together, played foosball (what else?), went to get dinner at a fancy (by our standards) restaurant, and then played foosball until they kicked us out of the game room. Really the only abnormal part of the evening was the restaurant choice. We've had that night many times. But tonight we were celebrating the departure of two of our members, so it was a bittersweet occasion.

Without a doubt, I'll miss them. Foosball club will of course not be the same. We're a dying breed, so to speak. The two of them represent a full third of our regular members. I'm don't really interact with them outside of the foosball tables, and with my recent boycott of facebook, keeping in touch will be difficult. So when they walked in the opposite direction to their homes, it occurred to me that I would probably never see them again.

Plopping myself down in front of my computer, I clicked through the three sites I check on a regular basis now: chessgames.com, riveraveblues.com, and teamliquid.net.

According to my profile, I registered an account on Teamliquid (TL) on October 4, 2008. I lurked the forums for a few months prior to that, so it's been almost three years since I first visited. At the time it was a close-knit group, focused on the professional scene of Korean Starcraft. There were the forum giants, who had accumulated 20,000 posts over 6 years. There were the villains of the board, who sought to "troll" at every given opportunity. It was a site to fall in love with because of its familiarity and common goal: forming a community.

Thousands upon thousands of man-hours went into that site. Whether it was a comprehensive analysis of the latest "revolution" in Terran versus Zerg or an endless list of "yo mama" jokes filled with the most topical Korean Broodwar references, the posts all had a cleverness and a certain charm behind them. I spent hours reading the forums. TL became my source for all news - not just the Starcraft variety. I knew that someone would always have an interesting take, or something funny to say, or at the very least, some lively debate to kick off.

I'll never say that all the time I've spent reading TL were wasted. They didn't really get me many places, per se. I'm not a better mathematician because of them. I'm probably not even a more informed person. All those hours run completely contrary to common definitions of productivity. So maybe it wasn't the best use of time.

Claiming that all that time was useless, however, could not be further from the truth. I learned so much about people. I was taught how to see the funny things in life. I saw first-hand where effort and determination could get you. I was inspired by the people dedicating their lives to an online service that was free of charge, all for the sake of a single passion.

But today I came home, sad at the prospect of never seeing the seniors again. Sad, but not crushed. People come and go in our lives, this much is inevitable. And as hard as it is to say, not everyone can be with us forever. So I thought to myself - if I can say goodbye to Steve and David, can't I say goodbye to TL?

It was a startling connection to make. Why would I stop visiting the site I've probably spent more than 10 hours per week on for the last 3 years? It's not like I was being forced into the situation, the way the departure of the seniors was forced upon me. The reasons were blatantly obvious, though. The community had changed, there were many new members, there are a whole host of things I should be doing instead ... but probably most importantly, I had changed.

It's really hard to believe when I say it out loud. I think we live our day to day lives, never stopping to think about it except on the most rare of occasions. I'm leaving people behind. I'm moving on from wading through forum posts looking for a laugh. It's strange. It feels weird. I'm uncertain.

I think this is what it means to grow up.