When I was a child there were two things that I used to pass the time. The first was board games. I would set up elaborate rules so that I could play them by myself and keep score. Sometimes I would even rope people in them. I also played war games and chess with my dad. I rarely have time or interest for board games now. I also played a lot of solitaire with standard decks of playing cards. There were even some solitaire games that took more than one deck. I had loads of fun spreading out a game on the floor with decks of cards. I could occasionally get one of my sisters to play cards with me but I tended to make up rules that meant I won in places where I did really win.
So what changed? Why did I grow out of childhood pastimes? The answer is simple: Video Games. Every year from the early 1980s (Pool of Radiance) to the early 2000s (Morrowind) video games got better in leaps and bounds. Board games and cards just couldn’t compete. I immersed myself into digital words in ways that before that I could only do with books. I loved “choose you own adventure” books as a child and video games were a step above those. As they progressed they became a very large step. Video games never completely crowded out reading though like they did with board games and cards.
I also outgrew Legos, or maybe more accurately they outgrew me. My memory of Legos is that those two by for bricks could be anything I imagined them to be. Now they come in sets where they are more like a puzzle with only one solution. I never got used to that change and eventually gave up Legos too.
Latter Day Sinner 