There are few things in life as utterly humbling and emotionally jarring as parenthood. I am physically arrested, on a daily basis it seems, by the frustration and awe and hope and love that I feel for my daughters. In fact, it is maddening to me that we don’t have a better or more complete word to do the swell and crash of emotion justice than to simply say ‘love’. In the English language’s defense, it is just after midnight while I write this, and I just finished rewatching the 2014 hit ‘Interstellar’. Despite its twelve-year age, it is still considered a scientifically sound film, and it’s hard to find a stronger trio of storytelling and compelling performance than Christopher Nolan, Hans Zimmer, and Matthew McConaughey, not to mention the rest of the incredibly powerful cast.

But what really struck me this go around, much more than I was prepared for, was just how strongly the film would yank at my daddy heartstrings. After all, beyond the galaxy-sized tension and universe-sized stakes and drama, there is an intense father-daughter relationship lying at the film’s inner heart. Not just any father-daughter relationship, but one between two bright minds. Between a father who is accomplished and driven and a daughter who is brilliant beyond compare, but who both share a sense of hope, wonder, and tenacious spirit.

And so, I think it was how profoundly similar I found Cooper and Murph’s dynamic to that of my daughter Francesca and me that had me really, truly shaking uncontrollably with silent sobbing. Just imagine, I’m watching this movie in my office, with headphones, and the rest of the house is sleeping softly. My daughter Francesca is just feet away (on the other side of the wall). And here in front of me is this overwhelmingly profound resolution of Cooper getting the data needed to solve interstellar travel back to Murph through a spacetime tesseract, coming out the other side of this improbable singularity, then seeing Murph again while she lies on her deathbed, as an old woman, surrounded by her own offspring. Attempting to emotionally convulse without producing much sound, lest I wake the rest of the house, is not as easy as it sounds.

What’s truly asinine is what happened earlier in the day that had me feeling like I had such a poignant, self-reflecting moment with Mr. Nolan’s space epic. Were my daughter and I also collaborating to save not just ourselves and our strained relationship, but the very future of mankind? Admittedly not. We were, in fact, playing video games.

On a whim, I abandoned our latest round of ‘Princess Peach: Showtime!’ to search the Nintendo E-store for something a little more nostalgic. What I found was a Nintendo Switch version of my beloved childhood favorite and cult classic: Rollercoaster Tycoon!

I had exposed Fran to Rollercoaster Tycoon on PC some time ago. The problem then was that she was only five or so, and using a mouse was still not that intuitive to her. It still isn’t. Hers is a tablet and smartphone generation, after all. Now, to be fair, I was about twelve when I first played Rollercoaster Tycoon at its release in 1999. I’ve played it endlessly since then and have become a bit of a master. So, I was very prepared to fight the urge to again be frustrated by her inability to maneuver the game this time around. “Can you help me? I don’t know how to do that. Click where?”

In short: she blew me away. I don’t know if it’s the fact that she’s going on seven now or that she was using the Nintendo Switch controllers instead of a conventional mouse and keyboard, but she dug in right away with a deftness and mastery that I could not believe. I’ll use this moment to also say that the programmers made some very subtle but useful changes to the way the game works to translate it to this interface. Regardless, I can say with great confidence that I would not have performed as well as her at six years old.

So, it wasn’t until I was watching Matthew McConaughey’s character, Cooper, zip around through parallel moments in the tesseract, knocking and bumping clues to his daughter, Murphy, back through time and space, that I saw the similarity to me watching my daughter earlier in the day, designing custom rollercoaster circles around my past self.

But really, both of these narratives, whether the Oscar-nominated one or my relatively domestic, milquetoast counterpart, are really about the human experience of curtailing your own pursuits and triumphs so that your offspring can stand on your shoulders and reach further. Animal instinct settles at simply clawing back to a breeding ground to give the next generation a chance at life. But to be human is to dream beyond simple sustenance. To give the next generation a chance to not just eat and grow, but to evolve into something you eventually won’t recognize or understand. And this is a mantle I am already consciously and actively passing to my daughters with purpose and intent. I am a dreamer. I am an engineer. I am an author and an artist. I am a tinker and a crafter. I am a humble servant of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I see all of those things in their young minds, and I know that I am here not just for myself but for them to climb higher and go further.

So, I guess my big takeaway here is that the stakes of life don’t need to be grandiose in order for one to be fundamentally and completely destroyed by the humbling forces of fatherhood. That your ego, desires, little plans, and good intentions can all be scattered to the wind by this smaller version of you. A version of you who will succeed in things you could only dream of failing at. A version of you who will not just gaze at the stars but go out and touch them. And a version of who can design a pretend custom rollercoaster that pretend people actually want to ride on their first try.

Matt Hebert is an engineer and self-published author. His dopamine-fueled creative pursuits have spanned from chicken keeping, sand sculpture, acting, and public speaking, but writing is nearest and dearest to his heart. He lives in Bellevue with his wife and two daughters. You can find him on Instagram at @jerkofalltradeshebert or email him at matt.hebert.books@gmail.com

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