"Stuff is eaten by dogs, broken by family and friends, sanded down by the wind, frozen by the mountains, lost by the prairie, burnt off by the sun, washed away by the rain. So you are left with dogs, family, friends, sun, rain, wind, prairie and mountains. What more do you want?"
Federico Calboli
"Job applications used to routinely ask you for your hobbies. I always proudly answered, 'None.' I'm a man with goals and dreams, passions and projects, not hobbies. Real writers don’t do hobbies."
8 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Unless, of course, your hobby is writing about hobbies.......L.B.
I laughed, Federico-- but on the other hand I have always resented having falconry, dogs, pigeons guns, hunting, art etc referred to as hobbies. They are OBSESSIONS (;-))
Stephen, yes they are! but unless you are hunting for survival, the word 'hobby' is not patronising -- it describes the activity for what it is, something we do to enrich ourselves.
Granted, a number of hobbies require true dedication to achieve their golas. But having a solid appreciation for the difference between work (say, farming) and hobbies (say, gardening) is the best way of avoiding piling bullshit up over the very activities that we'd like to use as a mean of enrichment and recreation. For instance, one might be a serious and dedicated bear hunter -- that does not mean one has to buy the idiocy that 'unless you kill the bear with a knife it's not proper bear hunting'.
Well said. It may be a defect in the language that lumps serious pursuits with trivial ones under the name hobbies. As Lane may be implying in the first comment, I make my living writing in part about things some call hobbies, but which are a lot more elemental than, say, collecting beer cans.
Also there can be as you imply a sort of fanaticism alongside obsession. "Not proper bear hunting" could compare with "Harrises are too easy" and with "the only fishing is with a dry fly, fished upstream to a sighted fish". Most of our pursuits are high play-- Federico's "enrichment"-- rather than survival."
'It may be a defect in the language that lumps serious pursuits with trivial ones under the name hobbies'
It's not a defect, it's a feature, and a good one for that matter. Aside from bringing a good helping of humbleness to the pursuit, it is a good flag for when we are getting too obsessed and start divorcing ourselves from reality, and common sense.
It forces us to be able to articulate why the hell we are doing what we are doing. It makes us realise what privilege it is to pursue our hobbies -- not everyone can afford the luxury of hobbies. How many people can choose a simpler life, with maybe a less paid job, to pursue an hobby? Some people cannot, because their lives are already bare bones, others just cannot escape a number of duties and responsibilities.
The way I see it is thus: one can be dedicated, even obsessive about one's hobbies, and that's fine. But when one's too insecure and feels the need to paint a hobby as a more serious pursuit something is lost.
Federico: "It makes us realise what privilege it is to pursue our hobbies -- not everyone can afford the luxury of hobbies. How many people can choose a simpler life, with maybe a less paid job, to pursue an hobby? Some people cannot, because their lives are already bare bones, others just cannot escape a number of duties and responsibilities."
What can I say? You are convincing me! Serious distinctions.
Mark: "sports" in the US include watching pro wrestling on TV and falconry with passage eagles-- a stretch. (The contemporary Sports Illustrated seems to cover only "games"-- see below).
I once declared with tongue- in- cheek snobbery (in a defunct Boston paper) that the 19th c English had it right. "Sports take place upon or in pursuit of animals. GAMES involve teams and balls".
Of course both come under Federico's definition of privileged play.
8 comments:
Unless, of course, your hobby is writing about hobbies.......L.B.
Lighten up Jules, one can feel the conceit from a different continent...
I laughed, Federico-- but on the other hand I have always resented having falconry, dogs, pigeons guns, hunting, art etc referred to as hobbies. They are OBSESSIONS (;-))
Stephen, yes they are! but unless you are hunting for survival, the word 'hobby' is not patronising -- it describes the activity for what it is, something we do to enrich ourselves.
Granted, a number of hobbies require true dedication to achieve their golas. But having a solid appreciation for the difference between work (say, farming) and hobbies (say, gardening) is the best way of avoiding piling bullshit up over the very activities that we'd like to use as a mean of enrichment and recreation. For instance, one might be a serious and dedicated bear hunter -- that does not mean one has to buy the idiocy that 'unless you kill the bear with a knife it's not proper bear hunting'.
Well said. It may be a defect in the language that lumps serious pursuits with trivial ones under the name hobbies. As Lane may be implying in the first comment, I make my living writing in part about things some call hobbies, but which are a lot more elemental than, say, collecting beer cans.
Also there can be as you imply a sort of fanaticism alongside obsession. "Not proper bear hunting" could compare with "Harrises are too easy" and with "the only fishing is with a dry fly, fished upstream to a sighted fish". Most of our pursuits are high play-- Federico's "enrichment"-- rather than survival."
"It may be a defect in the language that lumps serious pursuits with trivial ones under the name hobbies."
Or under the name "sports". Same type of issue.
'It may be a defect in the language that lumps serious pursuits with trivial ones under the name hobbies'
It's not a defect, it's a feature, and a good one for that matter. Aside from bringing a good helping of humbleness to the pursuit, it is a good flag for when we are getting too obsessed and start divorcing ourselves from reality, and common sense.
It forces us to be able to articulate why the hell we are doing what we are doing. It makes us realise what privilege it is to pursue our hobbies -- not everyone can afford the luxury of hobbies. How many people can choose a simpler life, with maybe a less paid job, to pursue an hobby? Some people cannot, because their lives are already bare bones, others just cannot escape a number of duties and responsibilities.
The way I see it is thus: one can be dedicated, even obsessive about one's hobbies, and that's fine. But when one's too insecure and feels the need to paint a hobby as a more serious pursuit something is lost.
Federico: "It makes us realise what privilege it is to pursue our hobbies -- not everyone can afford the luxury of hobbies. How many people can choose a simpler life, with maybe a less paid job, to pursue an hobby? Some people cannot, because their lives are already bare bones, others just cannot escape a number of duties and responsibilities."
What can I say? You are convincing me! Serious distinctions.
Mark: "sports" in the US include watching pro wrestling on TV and falconry with passage eagles-- a stretch. (The contemporary Sports Illustrated seems to cover only "games"-- see below).
I once declared with tongue- in- cheek snobbery (in a defunct Boston paper) that the 19th c English had it right. "Sports take place upon or in pursuit of animals. GAMES involve teams and balls".
Of course both come under Federico's definition of privileged play.
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