Issue #0002 - Concerning Hobbies
I just had a four-day weekend and I finally had time to think about my free time.
Quite often I do feel that we live in the Productive Timeline rather than in a normal universe. And it's quite a dark timeline to live in, if not the darkest. Especially when we have hobbies, and we need to nurture them. So, in today's episode I'm going to talk about hobbies. And rant, I'll start with the rant!
Hobbies are not meant to be productive
In this era of productivity sickness it seems that everything has to be done for somebody else. There is an infinite amount of vlogs about how to make the most of your time and how to best organise it to make all your hobbies fit.
Journaling has become a sort of waterfall plan, the free time is organised as if it were SCRUM or a Kanban board. When you do your hobbies you need to think about how to show them to the world, so they become meaningful by reaching more people on social media.
The thing I'm more amused by, and at the same time I hate the most is all those videos about going analogue while posting on YouTube. Stop pretending and stop performing.
If you do things with the passion of just doing them, you don't need to defend your hobbies in front of others.
Isn't this post just a contradiction?
It probably is! I'm here writing about "not performing" while seemingly giving advice about how to not do it. That's performative in itself, isn't it?
The main difference, or at least what I'm telling myself, is that others' opinions will not influence the final result as they would in a purely performative action. And I'm not trying to influence you into anything, although the shadow of a potential reader can be felt. Yet somehow it feels good to be yelling at the void, knowing that only the void replies back.
This is just a rant while doing one of my hobbies: writing whatever I need to get off my chest in a given moment. Perhaps tomorrow it will be a recipe for a sponge cake.
And to finish, I don’t expect anyone to read it. It's public, but I'm not looking to make an impact on people. If somebody finds it, then so be it. But it will still be me exercising several hobbies at once.
Hobbies are important
For me hobbies are important. I want to do them, and I want to spend time enjoying the process.
As I mentioned in the beginning, these four days gave me time to see on paper all the interests I have and all the things I want to do. Quite often I've felt that I didn't have time to do anything because my mind was full of things to do and all of them at the same time. I was stressed about not having time, while neglecting the little time I actually had. Everything was urgent and important, and hobbies need some nurturing before starting them.
Now I not only have a good view of the things I like, but I've also written what projects I'd like to launch to do those hobbies more. When and how I'll do them, that's another story. But at least it won't be because I don't know where to start from.
Ramblings from the North
Yes, this is it!
The inconsistent flow of random thoughts and decontextualised ideas. A place to enjoy writing without thinking about what's going to be next. A form of expression that mainly benefits me by improving my vocabulary, and a way of keeping my brain functioning while keeping it away from work.
Pictures from the North
One hobby that I've started some time ago is to go out and take pictures. I wanted to stay away from the all-time-connected smartphone, so I got a new camera, although it was released several years ago, with the mindset that it won't do anything else than take pictures (and videos).
It has kind of created a safety net, in the sense that I know that I'm disconnected when I'm street photographing. I don't need to check any social media, nor do I get notifications from emails, messages, or other stuff.
And in addition, the fun is not only in doing the action. It's about the whole process, as I mentioned earlier. Taking pictures leads to searching for books about photography to get inspiration. It means watching tutorials about how to create different effects, how to create specific contrasts, etc. And it's also about editing the pictures, and learning new stuff along the way.
The most important thing, though, is that it allows me to break the routine and go out. It allows me to observe the world from a different angle.
I still share those pictures on a social network, and that's something that I also want to change in the future. For now, though, it will be a way of sharing them with those close to me.
