30 days meme: Day 6, "Hobbies"
I've been mulling over this entry all day, and not getting very far. In fact, I'm finding this one so difficult that I actually looked up the definition of hobby, in the hopes that it would provide some guidance. Unsurprisingly, it did not tell me anything new - no guidance there. So here I sit at 9:39 pm, with 2 hours and 20 minutes to come up with and write the whole entry. I'm even contemplating switching this day to "Epilepsy." Hopefully I can manage not to, in case there are harder prompts for which I really, really, super need the subject change. (If I get through the meme without having to use it, I'm planning on making a 31st entry.)
In any case, it can't hurt to post the dictionary definition, just so we're all starting on the same page:
Hobby: noun, plural -bies.
1. an activity or interest pursued for pleasure or relaxation and not as a main occupation: Her hobbies include stamp-collecting and woodcarving.
2. a child's hobbyhorse.
3. Archaic a small horse.
There are a few things that one might consider hobbies of mine, although I don't really think of them way. First is reading. Like most of my friends, I am a voracious reader and have been for most of my life. However, it doesn't feel like a hobby. Rather, it kind of feels like an aspect of myself. I literally can't remember a time when I didn't read anything put in front of me. Books were best, of course, but without one I'd read whatever else was there - catalogs, cereal boxes, receipts, money, et al. Can a hobby start before you have memory, or be that broadly compulsive?
Second is daydreaming. I do that lots and lots, especially when I'm walking. I have a few standard fantasies, and I love losing myself in them. Admittedly, daydreaming does fit our dictionary definition - it gives me pleasure and it relaxes me - but still, daydreaming? Who doesn't do that?
Besides daydreaming's ubiquity, there's another reason it doesn't feel like a hobby: It's all in my head. That is also what (I think) disqualifies the next two "hobbies." Numero uno: Etymology analysis. If I'm walking and not daydreaming, I'm probably trying to infer the etymology of a word I just came across. However, I don't usually research the words, because I'm walking and don't have the internet in my pocket. I do spend a lot of time on The Online Etymological Dictionary though, because etymology is awesome.
Numero dos: Quadratic equations. I just really like quadratic equations, so I make them up sometimes and figure them out. In my head, of course, as this is another one that I do while walking.
I also love to sing along to songs, but rarely sing in public. Exceptions to this are when there's a sufficiently huge chorus that I don't have to worry about sounding terrible, and the time my ex forced me to do karaoke. (Oh, how I pity the rest of the people in that bar.) As for instrumental music, I honestly don't play music enough anymore for it to count as a hobby.
Those are all my current possibilities, so I think we've established that, whether or not I have hobbies, I at least don't have the iconic kind.
There's a reason for that, I think, and it's almost certainly related to the fact that I'm a streaky worker. I'm either in super-high productivity mode or in way-low productivity mode. (To be clear, "Streaky" does not mean that I am naked when I work. Although, depending on the work and my mood, I might be.) Hobbies are limited by that same streakiness. I'm either obsessed with something or not. I rarely do activities casually, but I don't have much in the way of staying power. Lest you claim that the things above show staying power, note that all of them don't require very much of me (except for reading, but that's integral to my sense of self) - they are the rare casual activities, if you can even call them activities.
I did have two things that were honest-to-goodness hobbies, though I don't do them anymore. (See "staying power.") First was beading - only simple necklaces and earrings, nothing exciting. Well, nothing exciting to other people. Thinking back on it, for me, making those simple necklaces and earrings was pretty awesome. It's expensive to make your own jewelery, though, and I fell out of it when I was 17 or 18 for just that reason. It's honestly surprising how much cheaper pre-made stuff is.
Second was picture framing. I discovered it because my mother needed a custom frame for a painting. Custom framing is expensive, but there's this one place, The Framer's Workshop, where you have the option to do the labor yourself, knocking the price down quite a bit. My mother wanted that discount, but didn't have the time. Enter me. One of the clerks showed me what to do and I got to work. Framing stuff was... well, not exciting and awesome the way beading was, but still a wonderful feeling. It's hard to describe, so let's just say that I felt more at peace, calmer with myself than I had, ever.
Custom framing is way more expensive than beading, even with the labor discount, and art is more expensive still, so I definitely couldn't sustain it as a hobby. Still, there was a while there when my mom bought a lot of art, so I went in every few months with a new picture needing to be framed. When she was footing the bill, it was much more attainable. Besides being expensive, though, framing is also a time sink, and Framer's Workshop was about an hour from my house. Obviously, it quickly fell by the wayside.
Last, but certainly not least, is my on-again, off-again affair with learning languages, which I suppose is the closest I get to an actual, current hobby. I love foreign languages as much as I love quadratic equations, and they tie in very nicely with etymology. Every once in a while I pick up one of my old language textbooks (German, ASL and Chinese) or grab a language-learning program for a different one and study, study, study. I have lots of fun with it for maybe a month, and then the fun peters out for a while, until the cycle begins again. (Hmmm... speaking of that cycle, I really should brush up on my Latin or Ancient Greek...)
In any case, it can't hurt to post the dictionary definition, just so we're all starting on the same page:
Hobby: noun, plural -bies.
1. an activity or interest pursued for pleasure or relaxation and not as a main occupation: Her hobbies include stamp-collecting and woodcarving.
2. a child's hobbyhorse.
3. Archaic a small horse.
There are a few things that one might consider hobbies of mine, although I don't really think of them way. First is reading. Like most of my friends, I am a voracious reader and have been for most of my life. However, it doesn't feel like a hobby. Rather, it kind of feels like an aspect of myself. I literally can't remember a time when I didn't read anything put in front of me. Books were best, of course, but without one I'd read whatever else was there - catalogs, cereal boxes, receipts, money, et al. Can a hobby start before you have memory, or be that broadly compulsive?
Second is daydreaming. I do that lots and lots, especially when I'm walking. I have a few standard fantasies, and I love losing myself in them. Admittedly, daydreaming does fit our dictionary definition - it gives me pleasure and it relaxes me - but still, daydreaming? Who doesn't do that?
Besides daydreaming's ubiquity, there's another reason it doesn't feel like a hobby: It's all in my head. That is also what (I think) disqualifies the next two "hobbies." Numero uno: Etymology analysis. If I'm walking and not daydreaming, I'm probably trying to infer the etymology of a word I just came across. However, I don't usually research the words, because I'm walking and don't have the internet in my pocket. I do spend a lot of time on The Online Etymological Dictionary though, because etymology is awesome.
Numero dos: Quadratic equations. I just really like quadratic equations, so I make them up sometimes and figure them out. In my head, of course, as this is another one that I do while walking.
I also love to sing along to songs, but rarely sing in public. Exceptions to this are when there's a sufficiently huge chorus that I don't have to worry about sounding terrible, and the time my ex forced me to do karaoke. (Oh, how I pity the rest of the people in that bar.) As for instrumental music, I honestly don't play music enough anymore for it to count as a hobby.
Those are all my current possibilities, so I think we've established that, whether or not I have hobbies, I at least don't have the iconic kind.
There's a reason for that, I think, and it's almost certainly related to the fact that I'm a streaky worker. I'm either in super-high productivity mode or in way-low productivity mode. (To be clear, "Streaky" does not mean that I am naked when I work. Although, depending on the work and my mood, I might be.) Hobbies are limited by that same streakiness. I'm either obsessed with something or not. I rarely do activities casually, but I don't have much in the way of staying power. Lest you claim that the things above show staying power, note that all of them don't require very much of me (except for reading, but that's integral to my sense of self) - they are the rare casual activities, if you can even call them activities.
I did have two things that were honest-to-goodness hobbies, though I don't do them anymore. (See "staying power.") First was beading - only simple necklaces and earrings, nothing exciting. Well, nothing exciting to other people. Thinking back on it, for me, making those simple necklaces and earrings was pretty awesome. It's expensive to make your own jewelery, though, and I fell out of it when I was 17 or 18 for just that reason. It's honestly surprising how much cheaper pre-made stuff is.
Second was picture framing. I discovered it because my mother needed a custom frame for a painting. Custom framing is expensive, but there's this one place, The Framer's Workshop, where you have the option to do the labor yourself, knocking the price down quite a bit. My mother wanted that discount, but didn't have the time. Enter me. One of the clerks showed me what to do and I got to work. Framing stuff was... well, not exciting and awesome the way beading was, but still a wonderful feeling. It's hard to describe, so let's just say that I felt more at peace, calmer with myself than I had, ever.
Custom framing is way more expensive than beading, even with the labor discount, and art is more expensive still, so I definitely couldn't sustain it as a hobby. Still, there was a while there when my mom bought a lot of art, so I went in every few months with a new picture needing to be framed. When she was footing the bill, it was much more attainable. Besides being expensive, though, framing is also a time sink, and Framer's Workshop was about an hour from my house. Obviously, it quickly fell by the wayside.
Last, but certainly not least, is my on-again, off-again affair with learning languages, which I suppose is the closest I get to an actual, current hobby. I love foreign languages as much as I love quadratic equations, and they tie in very nicely with etymology. Every once in a while I pick up one of my old language textbooks (German, ASL and Chinese) or grab a language-learning program for a different one and study, study, study. I have lots of fun with it for maybe a month, and then the fun peters out for a while, until the cycle begins again. (Hmmm... speaking of that cycle, I really should brush up on my Latin or Ancient Greek...)