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Really wrestling with if I want to reconfigure my office, maybe get the big ol TV (for the atari) and other video game stuff out just to have more room. It's weirdly tough to put away, like I've definitely tied some identity into being the guy with old video game crap well at hand. But in honesty I have barely touched any of it this last year!

If we had a bigger place, like some places I've rented where I basically had a whole "game room" for myself, maybe there wouldn't be so much of dilemma...

But it's making me wonder, why the only gaming I'm doing is the Switch stuff with my super niece. I guess band (and porchfest websites?) has moved into the space (both in terms of hours, and just in terms of mental mojo) that games used to hold for me. And overall that's a clear trade-up, but still: I think video games are a truly special art form. For the first time in history we're able to mechanically put ourselves into responsive narratives. Each game is a microcosm, a new world, a new set of potential interactions, and I would argue that represents a more important diversity than almost any other kind of hobbyist collection. (Somewhat mitigated by what emulation can offer in giving 80% of the experience in like 8% of the space....)

FOLLOWUP. I posted this on FB. Liz posted something that encouraged me to dive a little more deeply into why I think games are so interesting, and not just another pastime:

I'd still hold to the idea that video games are a unique form. Sure, like with books, there are plenty of trashy and overly-genre-based works, but they offer a type of involvement- and each game has the chance to offer truly novel sets of interaction- that bring it closer to, say, performing music (like a piece that someone else wrote) than to say watching a movie or even reading a book.

Over the last 5 years or so I've identified "interaction" (and the emergence that can happen with interconnected system with interacting components) as THE key to my philosophical understanding of the universe- and no form better exemplifies playing with the creation of types of interactions more than video games. So while it's good not to yuck anyone else's yum, i'm going to stan for video games more forcefully than say TV.

Maybe more significantly my ex Mo wrote

I've become known at work for saying "the process should serve us rather than us serve the process" and the same goes for space. We evolve as humans. Your space should evolve to serve you rather than holding space for something that no longer serves you. Lol that sounds deeper than intended but it is a useful mantra.

My response was

heh. i guess for me is a feel that people's cores don't evolve much, but different potentials that have always been present may unfold (arguably that can sometimes be a distinction without a difference)

I appreciate the encouragement that a space can reflect personal evolution.

But to the extent it is an evolution, it always feels like the chance for de-evolution as well. To quote an old Arlo and Janis comic:
"As I get older, I don't enjoy the same things I once enjoyed. But I enjoy new and different things!
I just don't enjoy them as much as I used to enjoy the things I no longer enjoy."

(That said I probably enjoy band stuff about as much as video games- but i still miss them, from playing games alone, with a bunch of friends over, or even making them. It was a fairly rich activity for me in social and creative ways)

Anyway you more than most people had to interact with my intuitions about personal evolution (even before they were as understood and caraloged by me as they've become) and so / but we can leave it there for now.