LA has been cold and windy lately, which has offered ample excuses for me to do nothing but stay inside and play video games. i bought lovely a switch for her birthday, following a steadfast tradition that we’ve established of giving each other presents that are actually for our own selves. it’s been so long since i’ve sat in front of a television, letting the hours mudslide away while gripping a controller, that i woke up after my first day of playing mariokart with pain running from my wrists to my neck. it was like the inverse of a post-workout soreness after hitting the gym after a long, lethargic winter. but perhaps these are the dues to pay in my current campaign to find pockets of unproductivity. productivity is what squeezed gaming out of my life in the first place, following college when i decided that i have a grand purpose in this world that would only be achieved if i spent less time playing and more time working. for years after, i traded the RPGs and combat games i loved to instead expand my internet presence. instead of collecting gems and coins, i started chasing likes and followers. instead of striving to get to the next level, i placed my sights on inbox zero. instead of combatting fantastical monsters, i took on internet trolls. better to spend this energy on real life, i’d tell myself, as i assigned my various emails to their appropriate archive folders, sent links to “read later” tabs that i’d never revisit, let my time disappear into days spent rummaging through productivity apps. welcoming videogames back into my life comes as a desperate measure in my struggle to resist turning to work (or worse, the news) when i don’t have anything else to do. it’s an attempt to retrain myself to need to be productive by default, to denounce the religion of optimizing my life. it’s an acceptance of all that this year, with this pandemic, and these lingering stresses, are trying to tell me. that no matter what i do or don’t do, i’m worth my own time.