I don't think I've ever used the word "hobby" to refer to anything I do. I don't relate to the idea of a "hobby," even though I like to do what I want, what interests me, and I have almost nothing but free time. I don't think of this blog as a hobby and might be annoyed if someone I knew called it that. But maybe I would be better off if I did something that genuinely deserved the label "hobby." I don't consider walking in the woods a hobby. Or reading. Maybe photographing the sunrise every day is a hobby, but this is the first time I've connected it with that word, which, to my ear, sounds diminishing.
So let's check out these 6 things. 1. Collecting animal figurines, 2. Playing video games (why not count watching TV?!), 3. Paraclimbing (climbing for persons with disabilities (I don't think sports are "hobbies")), 4. Boxing (another sport), 5. Making pizza from scratch (cooking can be a hobby), 6. Walking the dog and paying attention to the plants and animals that interest the dog (I'm intrigued by the idea of paying attention as a hobby).
Well, it's Labor Day, and I like thinking of my own personal freedom from labor. I'm not decrepit enough to deserve the word "retired" — if you want to think about words. That has to do with withdrawing or receding, retreating, or falling back. I'm reading the OED. Maybe paying attention to words and looking them up in the OED is my hobby.
Did you know that the original meaning of "hobby" is "A small or middle-sized horse; an ambling or pacing horse; a pony"? That goes back to the 1400s. The meaning we know — which begins in the early 1800s — comes from the idea of riding a toy horse — a "hobby-horse." It's "A favourite occupation or topic, pursued merely for the amusement or interest that it affords, and which is compared to the riding of a toy horse...; an individual pursuit to which a person is devoted (in the speaker's opinion) out of proportion to its real importance."
When do you look at your own activities and judge your interest in them to be out of proportion to their "real" importance? It seems that if you're going to call something your "hobby," you're embracing the idea that your love of it seems foolish when viewed from the outside. By the same token, if you decline to use the word "hobby" for what you do out of interest and love, you are deprioritizing what other people think.
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Photography is generally considered to be a hobby. And lots of evidence of that on this blog.
How about an Avocation?
I have two hobbies... martial arts and shooting guns. Been doing them since I was 15 (shooting guns) and 20 (martial arts.) Have over 40+ trophies on the wall including several state championships. Also deer hunt to boot (again since I was 15. But hunting is more of meeting my old friends. The other two have more serious uses... if need be.
My perception of your photography is that it's part of your overarching mission to convey cruelly neutral information via your blog. The pictures are beautiful, even the ones with overcast skies, and open up forums for lovely discussions about topics important to your readers. The blogposts are informative, occasionally distressing, , but on the main, worthwhile. Not trying to flatter the host, but there are precious few places where so many viewpoints can be expressed.
"When do you look at your own activities and judge your interest in them to be out of proportion to their "real" importance?"
Pretty much all the time, considering that it is difficult to judge the "real" importance of anything. For example, while I am interested in posting comments on the Althouse blog, its "real" importance, apart from personal entertainment and political therapy, is, alas, minimal.
As to hobbies, I do family history with the help of some relatives. My conclusion is that for people who aren't mobile, dead relatives are hard to locate.
"Hobby" doesn't sound diminishing to me at all. But "collecting animal figurines" sounds like a definition of "misspent life".
"an individual pursuit to which a person is devoted (in the speaker's opinion) out of proportion to its real importance."
For may people, that's Trump hatred.
Precisely.
I suppose wargaming and military history study and tourism--I'm supposed to leave for Belgium with some friends in four weeks--are my hobbies.
And commenting at Althouse.
Well, the liberal arts were themselves hobbies. And still today, few make their living as English majors, historians, artists, etc., even as the evil capitalism has made renumeration for such work more common. But in the past, things that are now hobbies, such as sewing, knitting, woodworking, gardening, were just additional work. Hobbies are things done for pleasure in your non-working/sleeping time for the enjoyment.
Much of what is taught in college was once just hobbies for those who didn't have to work all the time to survive by living off the backs of others.
In the precapitalistic ages writing was an unremunerative art. Blacksmiths and shoemakers could make a living, but authors could not. Writing was a liberal art, a hobby, but not a profession. It was a noble pursuit of wealthy people, of kings, grandees and statesmen, of patricians and other gentlemen of independent means. It was practiced in spare time by bishops and monks, university teachers and soldiers. The penniless man whom an irresistible impulse prompted to write had first to secure some source of revenue other than authorship.
Mises, Ludwig von (1956). The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality
Gotta be Dr. Johnson.
Maybe a regular, somewhat disciplined activity is "relegated" to a hobby when it is sufficiently complex to be inscrutable to others, yet not weighty or accomplished enough to be a vocation.
I think amateur observers of nature are sometimes helpful to scientists, who have a vocation.
I
I got all paranoid about this issue in the first grade. There was a hobby contest, and the other kids and their parents brought in these fantastic mounted bottle top or matchbook collections etc and I actually thought the kids themselves had worked these up. LOL
So I asked my dad about hobbies, and he was a ham radio nut and knew all about it, but suggested rock collecting, bird watching or astronomy. So I did all that, but not very well.
Paraclimbing (climbing for persons with disabilities...
It's a bit of a stretch, but maybe that's underrated because you have to be disabled to participate?
Playing video games ...
The article specifies computer games, which can be things like strategy simulations that require a bit more thought effort than your typical first person shooter video game.
"Playing video games (why not count watching TV?!)"
Video games these days are much more engaged and active, some involving a fair bit of thinking, coordination, and learning.
I'd define hobby as what a person does with their own time and don't get paid for doing.
"if you decline to use the word "hobby" for what you do out of interest and love, you are deprioritizing what other people think." Well, God forbid that I should "deprioritize what other people think." I'm already on dangerous grounds for speaking of "illegal aliens" instead of "migrants" and misgendering people by not giving a damn what their "preferred pronouns" are," and sometimes even saying "paid for by the taxpayer" instead of "free." Now I face a Scylla and Charybdis choice about whether or not to describe my non-work interests as "hobbies." A new little spin on the old cliche that growing old is not for sissies.
The IRS is interested in your hobbies, which leads me to believe that Trump should declare hobbies tax-free, like tips.
With the expectation that Kamala will immediate follow suit.
IRS Tax Tip 2019-85, July 1, 2019
Many people enjoy hobbies that are also a source of income. From painting and pottery to scrapbooking and soapmaking, these activities can be sources of both fun and finances. Taxpayers who make money from a hobby must report that income on their tax return.
If someone has a business, they operate the business to make a profit. In contrast, people engage in a hobby for sport or recreation, not to make a profit. Taxpayers should consider nine factors when determining whether their activity is a business or a hobby. They should base their determination on all the facts and circumstances of their activity.
If a taxpayer receives income for an activity that they don’t carry out to make a profit, the expenses they pay for the activity are miscellaneous itemized deductions and can no longer be deducted. The taxpayer must still report the income they receive on Schedule 1, Form 1040, line 21.
A hobby is something that doesn't earn money. You come home from work -- 8 hours plus commute time -- and relax with an endeavor that just brings pleasure. I don't think the world works like that anymore. Many people have turned their hobbies into income via YouTube.
Anyone here collect bibilots?
John Henry
Kate is right. I think this is a problem too, where we monetize everything and so fun becomes more work. I've seen that with things I used to do like reading or writing which are now more part of my work. So I've tried to do things I'm not very good as a way of learning but also to avoid thinking I'll make money. Playing sax, which I used to be pretty good at but now just play a while each day on my own. I also have started painting a little mostly to learn about color and see things better. Things that get me away from a screen and also occupy my brain. I like hiking trails and kayaking in the local lake but they don't really distract me from my thoughts which need distraction these days
"Making pizza from scratch..."
That phrase, from scratch, has always bugged me. How low on the pyramid of tasks qualifies as from scratch. The cheese, for example... making your own cheese from raw milk would be an impressive hobby all by itself. But if one aims to make pizza from scratch, wouldn't that include the cheese from scratch hobby, not to mention the flour from scratch and the tomatoes from scratch hobbies?
>Ann Althouse said...
I'm not decrepit enough to deserve the word "retired" — if you want to think about words. That has to do with withdrawing or receding, retreating, or falling back.<
Which terms for "retired" have nothing to do with the word "decrepit" (= wasted, weakened, worn-out, impaired, broken down).
So, you in fact do deserve the word "retired." Or perhaps I, who also is pretty much the opposite of all those parenthesized words up there, just didn't get the "be decrepit now" notice when I retired years ago.
Inflation likely affects the desire to monetize any efforts outside normal work.
Building toy airplane kits, obsessive mechanical drawing, aiming to be an ultramathoner (I don't think that word had been invented yet) by running up to 20 miles regularly and at least ten a day, every day, no days off, for years), setting out to read as many books as possible, collecting books, then, lastly, listening to podcasts, many about extreme athletes, or listening to baseball games.
This was a useful exercise. When I started running, I'm not sure if there were listening devices, but I never used them. So I had many hours of introverted time to think, but I don't remember thinking about anything except my running performance. Lost in pure exercise. When I read, I would read everything by an author, then about that author, then about the era. Pop culture definitely enhanced reading history -- James Bond and LeCarre were gateway drugs to Kennedy assassination paperbacks, then serious histories of Communism, Gulag Archipelago to Dupes. Gave me a literary understanding of how people absorb world events. Ditto Little House on the Prairie, John D. MacDonald, Steinbeck, George Eliot. Still, an internal reflection. Now I read or listen but don't do. I need to think about the meaning of this trajectory. I could still run ten miles, but I'd definitely be tethered to a podcast. What happened to the silent ritual of hobbies? What happened to competing with myself?
Baseball is just nostalgia. Dad, the Seventies, all the men mowing their lawns, then drinking a beer and talking sports. That's why I listen on a transistor radio, sitting on a scratchy nylon lawnchair. Reggie JacksonCore?
In the corner with his book and tissue, all he can do is pretend to miss you. Closes his eyes as he sees her body. Pulls funny faces and that's his hobby.
When do you look at your own activities and judge your interest in them to be out of proportion to their "real" importance? It seems that if you're going to call something your "hobby," you're embracing the idea that your love of it seems foolish when viewed from the outside.
I don't have any activities which engage my interest disproportionately to their importance.
Therefore, I have no hobbies.
I enjoy — mostly — working on cars. I have a two-post lift in my garage, and probably $15k in tools I have accumulated over the years.
My latest project, finishing today, has been replacing the oil pan gasket and the turbochargers in my son's 2010 Bavarian Money Waster 535i.
I don't keep track of my time — that would be too depressing — but probably about 40 hours all in. Until I had to spend another 20 hours replacing an O-ring I damaged when I installed the new turbochargers, thereby requiring much dismantling and remantling.
Had he paid a professional to do that, labor would have come to over $3,000.
I have put a lot of time and money into gaining the skills and tools to work on cars. So, hobby?
But it has paid for many times over. Seems like that is pretty important. And it is unlikely that it, viewed from the outside, it seems foolish.
So, not hobby?
Roger Sweeny writes, "...an individual pursuit to which a person is devoted (in the speaker's opinion) out of proportion to its real importance."
If you want a hobby with real importance, take up astronomy. Most Earth-crossing asteroids, i.e. asteroids whose orbital path around the Sun crosses Earth's orbit, are discovered by amateur astronomers.
As if this Blog isn't a Hobby. My hobby seems to be "fixer uppers", first a ranch house now a popup camper.
Well you have to retire to Something!
Once had a post-retirement activity that made a small amount of money. Then I did it for free. A failed business became a successful hobby.
G-Pub
I think of a hobby as something you do for pleasure which specifically involves spending money as opposed to making money.
The instant you turn a profit it’s no longer a hobby.
For fifty years, my principal hobby has been to not be a hobbydehoy. I'll get there soon.
I've wondered about this. I've worked out (weight room) nearly every workday for almost 40 years now, but it doesn't feel like a hobby, even though I enjoy it and it is decidedly non-remunerative. Probably my only real 'hobby' is getting, cleaning/fixing old typewriters and writing letters to people on them. That's only the last few years. Is watching college football a hobby? The word feels like you should be doing something, not just passively watching someone else do things. I've been trying to make guitar a hobby for the last several years but it ain't workin' too well.
My late brother had an MBA and was an ERISA expert for Kaiser Permanente working at their headquarters. I had a JD and was a transactional lawyer. Both of us were knowledge workers with office jobs (and he got the short end of the stick with that ERISA specialty). He built furniture as a hobby, including his office suite and a good bit of the furniture in his home. He also built some furniture for other people. I build and fly model airplanes. You can work with your head--but you also have to give your hands something to do. It's a balance of life.
Only where love and need are one, and the work is play for mortal stakes, is the deed ever really done for heaven and the future’s sakes. Robert Frost
My hobbies include martial arts and tinkering with my 1984 Porsche 911.
I used to include a sentence at the bottom of my resumes -- "Pastimes include tennis, cycling and photography". I sound like a Boomer, right? (Even though I am arguably an X'er, but now know I am Joneser, LOL.) Anyone call their hobbies "pastimes" anymore?
"Alex, I'd like THINGS YOU DO TO RELAX for $400 please."
Nice running Tina Trent! I'm a 90-100 mpw runner myself these days. Also an avid reader. I used to be a goldsmith and blacksmith, and also do monolithic stone sculpture, but time and space constraints have put an end to that for now.
Both photography, traveling/sightseeing and hiking are all considered "hobbies." You do all 3.
My hobby was probably sailing. Spent an enormous amount of money. Had a lot of fun. made some life-long friendships and even won a few trophies.
My hobbies are drawing, painting, playing the piano, reading fantasy novels, taking pictures of flowers, and commenting on the internet. Looking back over the past twenty years, I regret not spending more time on drawing and painting. I'm quite conceited so I rather like the stuff I can make (even if I can see obvious areas for improvement), but I think if I had kept it up continuously -- between about 2007 and 2022 I completed 0 pictures -- I could be really quite good now.
I don’t mind the term hobbies. I always thought of hobby as something I did to pass the time that I enjoy doing and don’t get paid for.
The Playmate of the Month always admitted to loving Tennis, Swimming, and Backgammon.
When I was a teenager, I used to build plastic models and electronic kits. Most hobby stores had plastic model kits, model train sets, science experiments, Estes rockets, remote controlled airplanes, wood working tools and painting supplies. Now most hobby stores are all about home decorating with a little bit of home arts and crafts. And electronic stores are all about audio systems and professional electrician supplies. It was a sad day when Toys R Us stopped selling plastic models. (I read that one of the things that hurt plastic models was that the manufacturers of the planes, ships and cars started asking for royalties on their designs, which made a lot of the models unprofitable to produce.)
The "from scratch" thing bothers me too. I always thought it referred to making something from whatever you could just scratch up around the house. Now major corporations use that phrase to describe mass produced foods that are made from precise, preplanned recipes.
I always associate hobbies with collecting (coins, stamps, comics, miniature cars). My aversion to hobbies (or at least the label) is connected in my mind to my aversion to exercise for its own sake. Hiking, cross-country skiing, gardening, putting in a ground drainage system all seem to have some point other than just getting your heart rate up. I suppose photography is a grey area, but when I was into it, I wouldn't have called it a hobby, because it seemed to be about the craft, the quality of the end product.
Is blog commenting a hobby? A hobby dark horse.
A lot of my wargaming friends were also ACWABAWS reenactors, but that was way too time-consuming and pricey a hobby for my tastes.
His contemporary, Laurence Sterne. “Tristram Shandy”, which is a hobby horse of mine. Nietzsche wrote “We may give up for lost the reader who always wants to know exactly what Sterne thinks about a matter, and whether he be making a serious or smiling face (for he can do both with one wrinkling of his features; he can be and even wishes to be right and wrong at the same moment, to interweave profundity and farce).” Jefferson read “Tristram Shandy” aloud to his wife when she was dying.
"I don't think I've ever used the word "hobby" to refer to anything I do. I don't relate to the idea of a "hobby," even though I like to do what I want, what interests me, and I have almost nothing but free time."
I.e. your whole life is a hobby.
A "hobby" seems to be somewhat in opposition to a "passion." Calling something a hobby is to trivialize. Calling something a passion (an amateur is someone who loves some activity or endeavor) elevates.
I recently worked in a kitchen where the menu was 75% from scratch. That means, in a strict commercial kitchen sense of the word, that anything that is not ready to cook -- pre-breaded, frozen chicken strips are not made from scratch. The honey mustard we served with them was. It wasn't it from Ken's or a less tasty brand.
Years ago, we used the word "homemade" even though it had not been prepared inside a home
I recently worked in a kitchen where the menu was 75% from scratch. That means, in a strict commercial kitchen sense of the word, that anything that is not ready to cook -- pre-breaded, frozen chicken strips are not made from scratch. The honey mustard we served with them was. It wasn't it from Ken's or a less tasty brand.
Years ago, we used the word "homemade" even though it had not been prepared inside a home
Astronomical observing and geology.
Did an all-nighter last night. The atmospheric transparency in Vilas county was spectacular. Very pretty night.
But yeah, "hobby" doesn't have quite the right ring. Pursuit?
As to how far you need to go down into the recipe to consider it "from scratch", I would offer this example: True Garlic Aioli. made from scratch -- Although aioli and mayonnaise are both creamy emulsions, aioli is made from garlic and olive oil while mayo is made from egg yolks and canola oil. The final result may look similar but the two sauces have distinctly different flavors. Most of your "aioli" you get at a restaurant is actually flavored mayonnaise.
My hobby has been collecting. Comic books, books, stamps, Bazooka Joe comic pieces, comic strips that I cut from the newspaper, things related to Groucho Marx and the Marx Bros, books about JFK and then RFK, and lots of meaningless stuff. Wasted a lot of money -- except for the comic books.
When young we loved to go to the Hobby Shop. That sold plastic military models and archery equips. And toy train sets but most of all they sold fuses and gunpowder.
Grown up I too have no hobbies, golf being a serious thing. but am asked by people I meet what are my hobbies. It seems they all do expensive things like Drag Racing or deep sea fishing with million dollar price tags. And then there is sports season tickets. Big contributions needed for UGA seats for example.
The Professor’s problem is she is cheap. How much does sunrise hiking cost anyway.
I stand corrected. One of my friends is a yuge Sterne fan; I should probably give him a try.
Yes. That guy in The House of Mirth. Nobody else knows what they are.
In other words: I have passions. You have interests. Hobbies are for the proles.
The hobby store we went to as kids is still around, but instead of train sets and model cars and Airfix fighting men, now it's all about doing things with yarn. Sic transit gloria mundi.
Oh yeah, I had the model airplanes hanging from the ceiling like most of my friends did, but I have very little of the collector, and less of the tinkerer, in my makeup.
"The Professor's problem is she is cheap." I'm not sure I agree with that, but then I'm cheap too.
Cheap is a feature, not a bug.
I always felt awkward when someone asked my hobby. I either did virtually nothing, like watch TV or play video games, or worked. The closest for me was working on computers, which 3 decades ago, seemed like actual work to most people. However, I enjoyed building them, fixing them, and configuring the OS (the latter got old quick). I always associated hobby with an enjoyable, repeated activity, but also creative. Being creative is what made it difficult for me to call some things hobbies the way others did. I don't think the creative part is necessary for the word, but it seems appropriate to me.
Reading and commenting on blogs is not a hobby.
I have hobbies that I pursue just for the pleasure of doing them: knitting, sewing, making handmade books, baking/decorating cakes and cookies. I used to code little games for the iPad for my grandkids but they have their own gaming systems now. Once someone saw a pair of socks I knitted and remarked that I had too much time on my hands. He had just come from 5 hours of golf so that gave me a laugh. My kids just showed me actual hobby horse riding competitions which also made me laugh...in a fond way because I love hobbies. The word hobby has a very pleasant and uplifting connotation to me.
I always thought Meade was your hobby.
Robert, judging solely by this Comment, I'd say your hobby is truth-telling. And it HAS to be a hobby, because no one ever made a living at it.
For may people, that's Trump hatred.
Quoted for truth.
Althouse, you have attracted to this Blog a lot of interesting people. In these comments most of them describe interesting activities that they engage in for their own enjoyment. On other threads they engage, as I do, in conflict dialogue, and I may praise them or criticize them depending on whether or not I agree with their political/social opinions. This thread not only informs us about the activities and interests of others, it reminds us of the humanity of folks that perhaps we disagree with.
Thanks.
"Reading and commenting on blogs is not a hobby."
More like a public service.
“The Professor’s problem is she is cheap. How much does sunrise hiking cost anyway.”
What do you think I want to do that I refrain from doing because I don’t want to spend the money?
I spend my spare time hunting down the ancestors that attach me to DNA matches. One was easy- my father had an extra child none of us- and I believe that includes him - knew about. My great-grandfather- his paternal grandfather- seems to have had at least 5... one of whom I've confirmed.
I use to make and use amateur-level astronomical telescopes, and ended up on the board of the San Jose Astronomical Association, at which point it started to feel like a job.
Then I played with getting my private pilot's license, until I realized how much it was going to cost just to stay legally licensed (about $10 K / year in today's money).
Wow. Talk about a field for speculation.
How about starting your own law school?
Or a therapy center for travel-addicts?
Jesus is renumerative because in Heaven the first shall be last and the last shall be first.
So a hobby can also be a tool used as a means to some other end.
I think letter writing would be a great hobby, but I can't bring myself to do it.
Yes, absolutely and when you do this, both activities benefit from the other pursuit. I find it incredibly important when I am programming to engage in the physical. Hip-hop dance suffices.
Um, bibelots?
I'm kind of surprised nobody mentioned pornography.
A "hobby" Something you do to keep you from beating stupid people senseless.
Consider that another use of "hobby" is to designate a particular family of falcons, small and extremely agile, popular in falconry so, yes, definitely a tool used as a means to some other end.
No, that's a calling.
I took up math as a way to focus on other things besides the abuse I experienced as a child. It's very helpful and like Avenger's: Age of Ultron, it's also useful for inducing sleep.
I used to hybridized daylilies, until the deer started eating all of them. Now my main hobby is aesthetic forestry.
I guess I would assume this blog is, itself, a hobby.
Unless you consider it work?
Prof makes money if you use her portal to order from Amazon. NTTAWWT, and if it helps her tolerate all the nonsense more power to her.
Narr, check out the book Realms of Ritual, by Peter Arnade. Not in reference to porn; it's about Medieval Ghent.
I'll take a look, Tina. The author's name sounds vaguely familiar.
I've got Pye's book about the glory days of Antwerp on my radar at the moment, and just ordered two books about the Waterloo Campaign (by way of Prof's portal) for my upcoming trip to Belgium.
I highly recommend Pye's "The Edge of the World" about the centrality of the North Sea to world history.
One of the "problems" with DNA research is that some people do not want to be found, while others do not want to know about it. It depends, of course. Just in the last 30 days, my sister discovered that we (siblings) have a half-sister on my father's side. Everyone is happy and overjoyed, even though it comes late in life. She will be coming down to Florida in late November for about a week to meet us all.
I have hobbies. I am also retired. My hobbies are somewhat important to my mental and physical well being, but I have deteriorated in the past few years, and I now place more emphasis on personal relationships. My model airplanes ae sitting in the basement, unfinished. My motorcycles get infrequent exercise, and are feeling unloved. I also use to get much more physical activity at the gym and pool, but that has dropped off. I need to get back to work!
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