Most of us have a hobby or two – the things we like to do when we have a little spare time on our hands. Whether it’s gardening, woodworking, fishing, playing an instrument, or putting together a truly dizzying puzzle, hobbies keep us sane. They are the things we turn to when we need to de-stress a little bit or when we have a weekend off. Hobbies bring us joy and curiosity and the love of learning.
But I must confess; I might have a hobby problem.
It’s not that I have weird hobbies like collecting toe jam or competing in duck herding or enjoy playing dead in random places. I don’t have a room full of airplane barf bags or albums of carefully curated hair clippings. Hockey sticks do not make up my living room floor.
But is it possible to have too many hobbies? I started to make a list of all the hobby-like interests I have pursued at some point in my adult life and found that the list was so big I had to categorize it just to keep everything straight. Here is an incomplete inventory.
Creative hobbies run the gamut from wood-working (chip-carving, wood turning, table making) to creating with textiles (felting, quilting, knitting, crocheting), to cake decorating, diaper making, and hobby horse and tack construction.
There are music hobbies: piano, whistle, trumpet…
And thinking, processing, and communicating kinds of hobbies: I enjoy word games and writing and learning new languages – thank you Duolingo and COVID lockdown. I have (arguably) made a hobby of education: I have started four graduate degrees (only finished two) and have completed numerous certificates in various subjects. I suspect my family thinks the way I constantly circle around to taking courses again and again is really just an excuse not to get a real career.
Next comes outdoor active hobbies: running, cross-country skiing, cross-fit, horseback riding. The gear for my newest outdoor hobby has just arrived in the mail – cani-cross. Look it up!
Canoeing gets its own category – flatwater and whitewater, wilderness tripping, and gear acquisition (yes, that is a hobby – don’t knock it).
I could go on. Really I could.
While some of these hobbies have stayed with me for decades, most of them have been short-lived and I have often wondered if I just have too many hobbies – especially when I have spent a lot of money on transient interests! Does that make me lazy, undisciplined, or afraid of failure so I never try too hard? Maybe. But I have decided to reframe the issue. Let me share with you what I’ve learned about my hobby of having hobbies.
Evidence of curiosity
My aunt was a woman of insatiable curiosity. She wanted to know everything about everything and she wanted to share that knowledge with the people she loved. She would drive down old country roads looking for castles and old buildings. If an old schoolhouse or teahouse caught her eye she would stop and thoroughly investigate. It didn’t matter if the building had been converted into a home and the owners were in residence – she would stop anyway and make some new friends. She always took the long way home – just to see what she could see.
She once hired a lady lead us on a mushroom walk through the forest just for fun and the love of learning! My aunt was passionate about so many things and she made hobbies out of research, history, golf, crochet, travel. She loved to cook and spend time with her family.
Her system of keeping track of all the ideas that popped in and out of her head was to jot it down on a post-it note and stick it somewhere. She had post-its on the walls, in books, on packages of craft supplies, in photo albums and on picture frames. She had post-its in drawers and on counter tops. Toward the end of her life when mouth and throat cancer made it difficult speak the post-its multiplied exponentially!
She was a truly remarkable woman, with a multitude of hobbies and interests which just kept growing, fed by honest, genuine curiosity. She instilled a passionate curiosity in the people she met and taught me how important it is to take an interest in things. Taking an interest makes you interesting and having vibrant curiosity is how you live large in this truly fascinating world!
The Need for Change
Something else I have learned about having so many hobbies, especially the ones that I haven’t stuck with for very long, is that I have a deep-rooted need for change. Some people can’t stand change. Put the cushions on the other end of the couch and you’ll hear about it. Load the dishwasher differently and they will take everything out and reorganize it. Suggest you drive home along a different route and the forces of nature will simply cease to exist. Attempt to change the order of service at church (even in the most minute way) and… Stop!
Others blossom under the influence of change. People like me find ways in their lives to experience small-scale change all the time – paint the walls a different colour, cut your hair off, find a new wardrobe item, travel somewhere you haven’t been before. Small-scale change gives us freedom to let hidden pieces of ourselves out for a little romp in the sunshine. When I was in my 20s, I dyed my hair Ronald McDonald red and spiked it up all over my head. That might not seem like a big deal for others, but it was good for me and it was a low-risk change that I could control. Taking control over low-risk types of changes helps make those other large-scale unexpected changes seem a little bit more tolerable.
Hair colour aside, my need for change is mostly fed by the fact that I truly love trying new things – a lot of new things. As soon as I become relatively competent at that new thing, I’m ready for something different. Depending on the subject area, I find my tolerance for sameness is between 6 and 18 months. But instead of lamenting my inability to stick with one thing long enough to attain mastery, I have decided to embrace this need for change. I choose to be content with competence in many things rather than a master of one or two. Apparently Benjamin Franklin said that when you are finished changing, you are finished. I’m not ready to be finished yet.
Compelled to Create
The arts have never come easily to me. I could probably be a good technical piano or trumpet player if I practiced and I can sometimes hold a warbling tune, but I don’t have the ear of the musician. My drawings feature stick figures and semi-recognizable blobs. I don’t know how to translate light and shadow using a camera lens or oil paints. I don’t have the eye of the artist.
But I have discovered that the innate need to create is not dependent on artistic ability. My interest in texture doesn’t require anything other than the fact that I love the smooth long grain of wood beneath my fingers and am fascinated by the way a muscled haunch or attentive ear emerges from wool and needle. It doesn’t matter if I crochet lopsided multi-eyed creatures or sew a hobby-horse with a crooked smile. I must make it anyway. It doesn’t matter (to me, at least) if I write an intolerable paragraph or a cheesy haiku, it must be written. I have made some pretty terrible things. And some not so terrible things. But creating isn’t just about skill or talent – it’s also about imagination and desire: the imagination to envision something that elicits a smile and the desire to be a part of the continual making and remaking of the world and of humanity.
“Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten. Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with dry, uninspiring books on algebra, history, etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the ‘creative bug’ is just a wee voice telling you, ‘I’d like my crayons back, please.”
― Hugh MacLeod
Affirmation of Being
There are rare occasions when the doing of a hobby transcends the act of doing and becomes something bigger.
I am never more myself than when seated or kneeling in a canoe, feeling the depths of a silken lake travel up through my paddle and into body. Many years ago I spent two weeks paddling down the St. Croix waterway in New Brunswick. My companions and I were completing our advanced flatwater, moving water, river rescue, and tripping qualifications. At one point, just for fun, we decided to practice our solo 20 metre circles blindfolded. I can still remember how it felt as I smoothly slipped around the curve, my paddle never leaving the water but gently feathering below my hip, feeling for angles of resistance. It was a moment of peace, that said to me all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.
Something I can’t explain comes over me every time I pick up my paddle and settle into the boat. That is the power of an activity that fits so perfectly into the shape of being. For some that is painting or horseback riding or genealogy research. For me, it is a canoe, a paddle, and some water.
Living Large
The bottom line of having too many hobbies is that having so many of them makes me better able to cope with myself. Interests outside of myself put into perspective my own tendency toward insecurity and self-doubt. They also make me better able to cope with the world. They keep me looking hopefully for passion rather than flatly staring into the abyss of cynicism. They give me the courage to reject nihilism and embrace beauty. And so the next time something piques my interest and I get excited about trying something new and adding it to my ever-growing collection of hobbies, I’m going to dive in with curiosity and zeal and delight and not worry too much about whether I will ever be good at it or stick with it. Because, for me at least, that’s not really the point. It will make me a better person and will make the world seem like a brighter place to be and those are pretty good reasons to try.
“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.”
― Martha Graham