Monuments to the life we want to live

Today I said goodbye to a setup I was really proud of.

Yes, I’m already referencing the same photo I used in my first post on this blog – but hear me out. It’s directly relevant. Plus, I only have so many photos of my old setups, alright?

I built this “Console Tower of Power” at the end of 2023 and start of 2024. I found stacked shelves on sale that were similar to some I had as a teenager, they came in a splash of color for my space, and I needed something to get my consoles over to my desk for streaming and capture.

“Needed” – did I “need” it? A toxic cycle of purchase justification in my work is exposed here: If I have an idea for a workflow, a production, a setup, a project – and I don’t have something necessary to pull it off – then I “need” the thing to finish the job and therefore must buy it. This thinking has led to hundreds (thousands?) of dollars wasted in my career, yet also many incredible setups, workflow improvements, and lifelong tools. That inconsistent reward cycle perfectly primes my ADHD-riddled brain to always assume buying the thing is the right answer and figuring out how the hell I’m going to make it work or store it comes secondary.

Anyway…

I stacked the shelves, wired up the consoles. GCompSW for the analog routing, RetroTINK 4K for the scaling to capture. The switch also split the signal over to my big 36” CRT next to the setup for any 480i/240p games to be played there.

Honestly, this kind of shelving sucks for console routing. Perhaps it would be better with holes cut in the back for cables to run to – but if you’re not committed to permanent modification, wires going in and out of the cubbies isn’t fun, the shelves aren’t exactly sized well for most consoles, and none of them are going to have any good airflow (mostly a problem for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox and newer). But I did it anyway, as I had this exact setup in 2006-2008 and thought it was awesome, and I didn’t have the space or spoons to figure out a better solution.

There was something comforting about rebuilding an old setup. I tend to hold a lot of nostalgia for my old setups – they were, after all, places I spent much of my time at. I played there, socialized there, expressed myself, learned about myself, and explored the world (through the net). This nostalgia, combined with the fact that I just tend to do things a certain, oddly consistent way all throughout life, means you see both direct and indirect recreations of my older setups born in my modern studio space all the time. This felt like reconnecting with my younger self that prioritized fun and discovery over all else.

The problem with nostalgia is that we primarily miss the time – all the context that comes with the thing or the activity – more than the thing/activity itself. For the following year and a half after building this tower, I was knee deep in work. Most of that work did not involve retro game capture or streaming, even if I had wanted it to. And I was burning out. This console tower became a monument to the life I had wanted to live, the way I wanted to spend my time, but not how I was actually living. Along the way it got split in half to make room for more modern consoles on top, but I still hardly used it. In reality, it was a glorified stand for my PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 3. I didn’t play the other consoles on it very often, and the PlayStation 2 I would tend to play on the other side of the room on a CRT instead.

While I’m quick to jump into setup changes if it means building something new or adding idealized workflow options to my space, I’m incredibly slow to get rid of setups that aren’t being used or aren’t working. It’s hard to let go of that idea, it’s hard to accept that it was wasted effort or space.

This is made worse by the fact that my many-hobbies interest-hopping mind really does forget about or otherwise neglect hobbies for months (or years) on end, but can jump back into being obsessed at a moment’s notice. And if the setup for that obsession has been torn down or obscured during that time, it’s stressful to get set back up. Plus, I run the risk of losing momentum with that obsession in the time it takes me to set everything back up.

Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be someone who only cares about a couple hobbies or interests sometimes…

The end of December and first half of January is when I tend to take stock of what is and isn’t working in my space; what I have neglected, what I need to build for where I see myself going in the next year. As I start 2026, I plan to focus a lot more on my physical art, merch and cool stuff for the shop, and getting the absolute most out of everything I already have (and have set up) in this space, while buying or bringing in as little new things as possible. That necessitates massive re-organization, sorting and cleaning up the big piles of things just sitting around waiting on me, and getting a little more storage in this box of mine.

Space is precious and that console tower is eating up precious real estate. Especially since the only thing on it that I use regularly, my PlayStation 5, is moving. Most of my time spent on it in 2025 was playing Astro Bot with my kiddo. While it was neat to have a cool thing to do with him in my studio (especially helpful when I really need to get something done in here and want him occupied), we don’t need to be playing out here. Plus my wife would like to share in some of these games with us these days. So it’s going in the house.

This move kind of represents the core of what’s changing inside me and with my gaming habits that all of this circles around: My gaming time is no longer a solo activity. I’m not sitting in here playing retro games for hours by myself, streaming multiplayer games, or any of that. Most of my game time is spent with my wife and/or kid, or otherwise in the house. Most of my solo game time the past six months has been via my Steam Deck, because that’s been the best way for me to squeeze in the time that I have.

This is incongruent with the “monuments” I build to my “ideal” life with gaming. I build these setups because I imagine myself having the extra time to finish backlog games, dive into retro hidden gems I missed out on, and all of that – but I don’t have that time at the present. And I’m not willing to sacrifice the family moments, the co-op gaming experiences with my wife, all the little gaming firsts with my kiddo – any of that to make a solo gaming life happen. At no point would that be worth it. Sure, there are plenty of games I want to play solo and I’ll always need some “me time” – but I gotta be realistic about how much of my life (and therefore, my space) it takes up.

Admittedly, despite being confident in my reasons for and outcomes of this change, I was still feeling pretty bummed as I disassembled the setup and “accepted defeat.” It’s hard to not feel like I’ve failed at something whenever I have to take down a setup that I never really used or get rid of something I bought and never got around to.

But as I was wrapping up, my wife texted me. My kiddo wanted to play Mario Kart for the first time and was playing Double Dash on the GameCube in the house. I had to bring all the PS4/PS5 stuff in, but I had enough time to play a few races together with him before dinner. Steering in Double Dash is tough, but he was learning and adapting, and having an absolute blast. Giggling when enemies got bombed or hit with a shell, kicking his little feet as we used a Mushroom to accelerate down the track, and not getting discouraged when we got bumped to last place. I got to be there for his first kart racer and we had a lot of fun together.

That is why I’m doing this. This is where my life is at right now – and I wouldn’t trade that for the world (or any sick solo gaming setup it has to offer).