What do you do with your free time? We all have time not designated to employment or necessary chores. When not in an office scrolling through emails on your phone or carrying heavy things back and forth with a hard hat and a reflective vest, how do you spend your recreational time?
We find ways to keep our minds and hands busy. I call these ‘hobbies’.
Some may feel too tired or lazy and fall into the bottle with a remote on the couch to scroll through the channels until you find some presentation that will waste an hour or two. Some may see the “This Old House” program and go to the local hardware store and buy all the materials and tools to perform a to-do task, then check out the instructions on ‘YouTube’ but lose interest before beginning.
Some may find a partner a hobby, thrilling them with attention and adulation or vice-versa. Some may use their family as a hobby as an excuse to travel, purchase souvenirs, take selfies to record a time together and celebrate holidays.
Some may become serious readers, building home libraries and joining book clubs to review an author’s intention or take up writing your own opinions or fantasies. Some will dig down deep into history and present details not learned in class. Some will make the art of cooking a hobby and the kitchen their office while others will expand that hobby to open a restaurant to welcome strangers into their dining room. Some will make animals a hobby, whether saving the poor creatures wandering our streets to training equine dressage to an animal the weight of a truck. Some will have a hobby watching their neighbor creatures fly or swim while others sit in wait to kill them. Some may make a hobby of fandom to a team or participating in a sport until the physical transition reverts to supporting a former dream.
This ‘free time’ allows hands and minds to become creative. Some will work in yarn while others chop wood then again others mix colors on canvas with brushes and pencils. Visit a craft show and you can view (and buy if you like) a person’s hobby. Some are museum worthy but most will be fine for your grandmother’s kitchen, still they are a creation of one’s mind and should be appreciated for the effort.
I was a doodler as a hobby. Anywhere I was, a pencil and paper kept me entertained and out of the way of adults. I turned my hobby into a career, making enough to survive and provide using imagination rather than technique. I was lucky enough to experience the beginning of the digital age where experimental software could produce all the utensils and tools of the trade I’d purchase for years.
I still have several drawing boards and pads of paper and pencils and pens of every size and color to remind me of the necessity of producing ‘art’ required.
My other ‘hobby’ is music. I grew up in a musical family but when the folk era hit, I started to pay attention. When the British Invasion occurred, I wanted to stop pleading for the poor and down trodden that the glee club on college campuses had been singing about from the old Delta blues to boys in tight pants with long hair playing loud guitars with cords on them and jumping about in front of screaming girls. I was lucky enough to play on many stages to a variety of music with a team of fellow players to make a noise that kept the audience dancing and boosted my ego. Like Jay Leno and his garage of autos, I’ve collected a small corral of musical instruments that I could not afford in my youths. My hobby continues as self recordings (using all the digital toys on laptops that used to require studios) and posting on the web for others to enjoy or critically review (for free).
Hobbies should be fun to stimulate the mind and learn new and ancient techniques to share with others. Check out the marketplaces of hobbies that have come and gone but maybe renewed by another generation.
Enjoy.
