This beautiful video reminded me of how our hobbies change through life, how some hobbies are actually not hobbies, and how you evolve through the line of experiences that make you who you are today.
I remember when I joined Automattic and I started just to talk to people, and they would ask me, “What’s your hobby?” And I didn’t have the answer.
Other times, I often would think that my hobby was walking and staying with my family, but that is not a hobby. Passing time with my family is nowadays part of my life. It is my life, actually.
Hobbies
What are hobbies then?
To me hobbies are things I extract out of life. They are, to me, ways I can expand myself into different areas, things that are outside of what daily life is.
Life will continue. My daily life will change.
Hobbies are how I extract time out of nothing to grow.
Writing
To me, hobbies today, and even yesterday, would have been writing. Writing is a hobby.
I feel guilty for not writing more. I feel guilty for not spending more time writing, given that writing was such a key part of how I grew up, even though I never liked writing as a kid.
Creating Products
Creating products, physical products, is another hobby of mine.
Being so deeply invested in the digital world, AI, and stuff, and being so deeply used to ephemeral things, creating a product that’s real, that people use, is a totally different thing. You craft, you hone a different craft, a different attention.
Some would say that it’s the same, and I would agree. When you’re building a product, it doesn’t really matter if the product is digital or physical. What you want ultimately is for the customer to be happy. And what you want as a creator is for your product to be in touch with your customer and for you to understand it.
And to me, that is a hobby. Even though that is much more spontaneous than my daily job is.
Making Space
And then, besides that, I would probably say working out is my hobby, even though I don’t do it that much.
But again, that would start the question: do you need a hobby to last long enough to be considered as such?
After all, you’re making space for stuff, creating extra time through dedication so that you can do things that expand yourself across different areas and horizons.
Those are what hobbies to me are, and they can shift and they can change, and you can abandon them.
Those hobbies are a color in the painting of who you are and your life. They’re a part of a journey where you know where you stand, but you won’t know where you’re going.
Because hobbies, by definition, for me, don’t have a destination beyond the joy of doing them.
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