Life Lessons from Super Mario World

Tonight, while playing/watching others play Super Mario World on Supernintendo last night with Walter, Alecia, Leslie, Chris and Jeanne, we realized that there are quite a number of valuable life lessons to be gleaned while braving the tricky, tempestuous, two dimensional world that is Super Mario.

Lesson # 1 - Embrace the mantra of "Duck and Run!" Sometimes, the best thing to do is just duck and run, and leave those silly, basically worthless gold coins behind so you can avoid the flaming flowers of death or pesky ninja turtles. Leslie claims this theory enabled her to survive and hold her own as the youngest child, as she elbowed her way past older brothers who made fun of her for not being able to keep up while playing Mario.

Lesson # 2- Kind of goes a long with Lesson #1: "Don't get greedy." When you chase after falling stars when you should really just cut and run and finish off the level, sometimes such rash, greedy behavior makes you fall right into a boiling pit of lava. Pick your battles, child. It ain't worth it.

Lesson # 3- For Mario 1, "You are nothing without Flower Power." Without Flower Power, you're just a miniature bug waiting to be squashed. Flower Power is key. You can shoot everything that moves. 'Nuff said.

Lesson # 4- "Watch out for the teeth. And killer fish." They're tricksy and they'll get ya every time. Literally.

Lesson # 5- "Sometimes your best friend will ditch you, leaving you to fend for yourself. And make you go into the creepy ghost house all by yourself." Man, when Yoshi's around, everything's great! You can hop around higher, have him eat every enemy in sight and you can generally rock at the game. He is, however, as fickle a friend as they come and will turn tail and run as soon as you fall off. It might be a friendship of convenience, but hey, sometimes it happens. People (as well as the race of Yoshi) are flawed. Disappointment will come. You'll just have to learn to deal.

Lesson # 6- "Patience. A solution will present itself." When you are navigating through the scary, never ending tower of ever-changing walls and it seems like there's no way up or out, a solution will come. Everything you need you have. Just be patient.

I think that's it. Even if it's not, my brain is way too overloaded from the juxtaposition of C.S. Lewis and SuperNintendo to think anymore...

Good night, friends:)