Truly, the human is a peculiar creature who is simultaneously blessed and cursed with an indomitable spirit. No other organism upon this planet has so thoroughly assimilated into its essence the goal of exerting consummate dominance over the very fabric of existence. We were never meant to soar through the skies, yet the speed of our jet planes remains unmatched in the animal kingdom. We were never meant to play the role of almighty God, yet our devastating nuclear weapons and subatomic colliders are testament to our bold defiance of fate. Again and again, we prove that we have not yet reached the limits of our capability; we have merely caressed the surface of our vast potential.
From time to time, select individuals are born with the purpose of boldly expanding the horizons of human achievement. It is not often that human feats are considered worthy enough to warrant a designated area of our memory; indeed, billions of human lives have been washed away by the relentless waves of time without any lingering remnants within our hearts. Today, however, we stand at the brink of a momentous occasion as one of those special individuals toils to eternally record his name in the annals of history. You may have heard of him—his name is S U O M I.
Ever since we discovered there was an upper limit to the amount of experience we can achieve in RuneScape, we have kept the knowledge within our minds that RuneScape has a finish line: gain two hundred million experience in every skill and the game is essentially "completed" in a certain sense of the word. No matter how distant that finish line may be, no matter how expansive the content within mysterious Gielinor may be, the mere existence of a finish line has fascinated RuneScapers as an elusive dream that may one day become reality. That day is not today, but it lies in wait, tantalizingly close. When placed in the context of the overarching goal of five billion experience, the 26 million experience which remains at the time of writing this article is an insignificant drop in the bucket.
The fact that I can refer to 26 million experience as "a drop in the bucket" attests strongly to the astonishing effort already devoted by S U O M I. The magnitude of his accomplishment really cannot be overstated. The length of time necessary to achieve such a goal is tens of thousands of hours, years of patient progress and boundless determination. This man has taken on a quest which initially seemed impossible, and he has thoroughly conquered the challenge. He has risen up where many have lacked tolerance or interest, but his story is not a tale of grueling hours of slave labor. On the contrary, he has enjoyed the breadth of his journey.
Malevolent doubters criticize him for "wasting his life away" on a computer game. Nevertheless, there are times in which individuals live for the sake of living, times in which individuals achieve goals which are logistically and logically impossible solely to demonstrate they can. Society has not withered away due to S U O M I's devotion to a game. Society will live another day; in fact, society will be enriched by S U O M I's inspiring manifestation of human dedication.
Other critics shun S U O M I for accepting donations to further his progress, but at the end of the day, the one who has gained 4.9 billion experience is none other than S U O M I himself. Let us not erase from our selective memories the arduous path he took towards his goal. S U O M I did not start with the relatively easy skills to artificially boost his experience and self-esteem. S U O M I started off his journey with onerous skills such as Fishing, Agility, and the Mining-Smithing-Magic trio at Living Rock Caverns. He began by frontally assaulted the skills widely considered to be the most thorough tests of endurance, working under relative obscurity while others shot ahead in experience through the use of faster, "buyable" skills. He is the living proof of the "slow and steady wins the race" philosophy.
S U O M I has diligently earned every last coin that he has received. The donators were not scammed or deceived; they freely gave their hard-earned wealth to a player with unusually high work ethic. S U O M I has not disappointed his donators and fans, gratefully utilizing each golden coin in order to follow through on his long-standing promise to attain his dream. No goal is ever achieved without some generous form of assistance along the way, and S U O M I is no exception. Despite this, the dedication with which he has impressed us is a rare gift: the product of human triumph. In my mind, there exists not a shred of doubt that S U O M I would have achieved his goal with or without fiscal subsidies.
What is that mysterious quality of the human nature which compels us to sow bleak negativity on the day of someone's great triumph? When S U O M I finally crosses the finish line of his painstakingly lengthy voyage, can we not appreciate his hard work and commend him instead of continually casting doubt upon his methods and choices? He is the very embodiment of laboring towards a lofty goal, and his success instills within us a sense of hope and inspiration. At times like these, we must congratulate and praise our fellow human being.
For those who have followed his progress from the beginning and for those who have not, we can all appreciate that another insurmountable wall has been surmounted. However, we cannot appreciate the essence of the goal itself. Millions of experience, tens of millions of experience, hundreds of millions of experience, multiple billions of experience—the finish line of S U O M I is utterly unfathomable.