Hobbies, those interests to pursue without it being a “side gig” and often without the need to be at all expert at them, were something I started focusing on, ironically, in the Before Times. I believed (and still believe), it’s very healthy to have some pursuit that is not monetized, potentially not judged and evaluated like job performance might, and perhaps free of some of the wacky things outside of your control that one can’t avoid in their ducat-earning occupations.
(This is one of the reasons I strongly advocate actors, who by and large depend on others to hire them to act, cultivate pursuits that are not dependent on someone else’s approval.)
I’ve also mused that overall life satisfaction depends on a combination of hobbies and the aforementioned ducat-earning occupations, as no one thing is going to do it all. (This is connected to the concept of ‘ikigai’).
These were some of the thoughts I had when reading Anne Helen Petersen’s piece on hobbies on her “Culture Study” site.
It sadly doesn’t surprise me that people have to work harder to carve out time for hobbies and that being able to do so is almost a form of luxury. The nature of the hobbies too, being demanding in such a way so that the time must be yielded, also scratches my anthropological curiosity. However, I can’t say it seems like a good thing, a notion that I had from the Before Times and feels even more relevant now.
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