Manuals - A dirty love letter

Nine-year-old Tobias, in the local ice hall. It's summer and the rink is boarded over, no ice in sight. Just as good since the kid isn't that great on a pair of skates. A flea-market is in full swing in the huge hall. Cutlery, kids clothing, old pots, lampshades, kids clothing, kids clothing. Kids clothing. At a table in the middle of the hall an item radiates a huge gravitational pull. A black cardboard box. On the front is a painted picture with a red triplane against a cloudy sky. A couple of green planes in the background, one of them on fire. Red Baron it says in a blackletter font. Because he is very fascinated by aircraft, and is collecting Biggles books (yes, he has a list of all of W.E Johns about the books he has bought, and which he has yet to get) he instantly knows that this is about Manfred von Richthofen, the German World War I ace. The size and proportions of the cardboard box is a dead give-away. It's a PC game.

"Mom, can I have it?"

Cut to an hour later. Nine-year-old Tobias sitting at the café with his parents. Flea-market day calls for coffee and cinnamon buns. Tobias enjoys a cinnamon bun as much as the next nine year old, so this in itself isn't a problem. But the wait to get home is agonizing. Opening the box in the café, he finds four floppy disks. That is the game, right? Also in the box are reproductions of maps of different sectors of the western front in France. But the pièce de résistance is a 112 page game manual. Detailing not just the menus, keybindings, game modes, but also the aircraft, the people, the tactics ("Attack from the sun, the enemy won't be able to see you against it"), flight maneuvers, instructions on how to do an Immelmann turn.

That is the game.

Now grown up, I boldly declare: Manuals are not boring. They are nothing to ignore or throw away. Not a necessary evil. Manuals are amazing.

I'm not saying it can't be a worthwhile experience to go in blind when trying something new. Of course there is value to just experimenting. But a manual is just so pregnant with possibility. At worst, it lets you maximize the potential of what you have bought. When buying a vacuum cleaner, sometimes this is all you get. At best? It's unadulterated expectation turned up to 11. A good manual tells you exactly what you are in for. It's like dirty talk. I'm going to get to do what?

Many people (read: my family) have always made fun of me for always ripping into the box and getting out the manual at first opportunity. But these tiny (and preferably, not so tiny) booklets tickle a certain part of my brain. The intersection between structured order and endless possibility. Manuals are the origin story, the prophecy and the law. Sometimes they help you dream, and if nothing else they will help you understand. This is true regardless of if it pertains to a nostalgic flight simulator, a vacuum cleaner, or when you just need someone (or in this case, something) to tell you how to set the correct time on your oven's display again after a blackout. When they go shallow, we go deep.

Read the f****g manual.