361. Our Fixation On Hobbies

Disclaimer: Don’t read this if you’re easily offended.

Normally I don’t get into the weeds of discussions, but there’s this common narrative amongst some folks that women, in particular, don’t have hobbies. To be honest, it’s not just this as a problem. As a culture, we deem hobbies as good, practical, productive, and somewhat of a must-have. If you are retired… well then, you must have hobbies! But why do we care so much about hobbies? I wanted to investigate this odd conundrum.

So we can first start with the sexist angle. Women don’t have hobbies. I suppose the first question is why does anyone care if other people don’t have hobbies, but then I immediately jump to why this likely isn’t the perceived case. If we consider that divine masculine is more associated with the “physical”, it’s likely that men have more physical, tangible hobbies. This of course isn’t always the case, but it would make sense as an observation. But let’s keep going. We live in the most expansive time in history. You could do something entirely new each and every day, grow your character, your knowledge and information and your strength. I reckon that you’d be a hell of a human being. One would doubt that a skill or enjoyment you practice redundantly would be particularly… helpful? Seems somewhat unproductive. Master of one, if you will. Many people don’t expect to improve greatly, either. Again, it’s simply enjoyment. They just continue to go down the monotonous path. Not to sound like Mr. Burns or anything, but hobbies appear to be futile. A way to densely pack space and time. A way to fill the void. Anywho!

I’m not entirely why we fixate on hobbies, but I do realize that in some ways, it’s not only a physical manifestation of our interests and differences, but it’s a way to connect or exclude others. When those who do not have the intuitive or emotional depth to discern someone’s compatibility or character, they likely default to hobbies. Sad.

If we remove ourselves from the odd categorizations and classifications we’ve created as “hobbies”, we can truly know and understand each other for we truly are. But perhaps some are not comfortable with themselves, so they default to hobbies as their personality.

Personally, I don’t have any hobbies, and I like myself better that way. I just serve the collective. It’s not always perfect, but it’s somewhat, maybe barely at times any, honest work.