Life snippet - what is a hobby or pastime?

What is a hobby or pastime?

Ever since completing the distance learning MBA last October, voids suddenly opened in my after-work hours and weekend. It's the free time I have always longed for for the 3.5 years while studying, and now I finally get it.

It was great to start with. I could read the books I enjoyed, watch TV without taking note of the clock, and not having to feel stressed over upcoming exams or assignments or study progress. But after around one month, my body started to itch - I need something more than reading books and watching TV or playing video games to fill the void. People usually call these endeavours pastimes or hobbies, but what are they exactly and how do they differ from the other activities?

It's no good thinking in an abstract manner, as I am not trained in that way. So, I have scoped out two other activities to compare against hobbies - namely work and flow. If my hobby is assembling model planes, then a similar work would be assembling toy planes in a factory and a 'flow' is watching a TV programme on model planes or lawn-mowing (something irrelevant to my hobby, something I won't do necessarily). If my hobby is cooking and writing/discovering/comparing blogs and watching food programmes, then work would be cooking in a restaurant or cooking for my in-laws, and 'flow' would be watching other TV programmes or cleaning the bathroom. What makes hobby a hobby, such that I would take up and enjoy, compared to work and flow?

First of all and most importantly, you have the freedom - you can choose to change hobby, add a hobby, or exit a hobby. People get warmer or cooler towards a hobby. But this freedom also applies to altering the scope of your hobby. I have expanded from savoury cooking into desserts and cakes, and at the same time switched from grilled foods towards bean and low/no-meat recipes. When it comes to work or flow, you usually have no choice and the scope is very much scope - you can change jobs, but once entered into a contract you have to do based on the company's needs, not yours.

This leads to the second difference, which is that it matches your capabilities (and corresponding capability gapes) and some of your non-financial-gain desires/goals. Simply having the freedom is insufficient, you must have some interest in it. Personally, I am not a dexter person or someone endowed with artistic skills or creativity, and so I wouldn't have chosen creative writing or drawing as hobbies. However I like trying out new food (and get bored by repeated food) and have quite a sensitive & analytical tastebud, and so I prefer cooking my own food to being simply served food and told to eat up. I am dexter enough to chop, slice and cook, and I also see some capability gaps in terms of types of cooking I can do, and so I am utilising my capabilities to extract fulfilment and at the same time keep me along the path of identifying & filling gaps. On contrary, work and flow doesn't have that freedom to let me match my capabilities and gaps - I may be forced to produce outputs from both my strengths and shortcomings, and the multitude of gaps I am not given an incentive to bridge from my existing capabilities. This exercising of capabilities and gap-bridging do not make me wealthier or help me earn money in spare time, it just makes me better at the hobby over time. Once it is about money (work) or avoiding having to pay (flow), I have little incentive to become better or it has to be a big change in goals to motivate me to edge forward.

This again leads to the third difference, which is that I can control the pace and path. If I tried to bake a cake but failed quite a few times, I can go and find out on forums or new recipes, enrol in a course or simply give up and challenge something else. If I give up now, I can come back later. If I can bake a cake but not that well, I can practise over and over again until I am happy with my capabilities, or sign off that "it's good enough" and move on. For work, there is not such luxury as what you do or learn next is based on what the company needs; for flow, there isn't a pace or path, you simply do and leave.

With the above three differences, the fourth difference is that you want to spend time to perform that hobby, savour the output of that hobby, and take effort in finding out how to better the hobby. For cooking, this means taking the time to cook (and not mind washing up afterwards), trying it out after and sharing it with friends & family, and then evaluating the outcome/going to courses/browsing cookware that may improve performance/watch food programme to find out what to do next. A lot of time and efforts will be expended, but you don't feel it's time and sweat down the drain - the reward in terms of becoming a more confident/richer self and having the output is evident and the driving force. For sports such as rambling, this can mean scaling a harder route in a difficult season; in video games, this is levelling up or being faster in clearing a level or winning in duels. If you land yourself on a nice job, it either means it matches your hobby (partially) or it's a strict 9-to-5 with good remuneration and benefits. For flow, you are required to put some time into it, but you don't really want to do that.

These four differences masks a fifth difference, namely that of having an implicit development path. You may not be aware of it in the form of completing a course and getting a certificate, or getting promoted; instead, you can look back and see the time you put in, the activities you conducted (in performing the hobby or performing the associated activities), what you have outputted and in what way you have become better. Work and flow can provide something similar as you get promoted and become faster at what you have to do, but the path is more externally driven than set by yourself with your own decision points at each critical juncture/turning point.

To summarise as the sixth difference, hobby is all about your own self and being, your inner needs. Through hobbies, you progressively become a more complete & richer person (not in terms of worldly wealth or external accreditation) filled with capabilities, memories and recognitions and that you allow your time to be spent in a worthwhile way that performs this enrichment or fulfilment. Pure work or flow focuses on the tasks and external commitment in exchange for external wealth (or avoid losing external wealth), and minimising time spent on it for the same result is the goal. If you decide to invest extra time in it, it's driven by the external wealth (promotion or getting a better-paid job or avoid having to pay a gardener).

This leads to the seventh differences, which is you control hobby and through that you control your as your self over time. You shape your hobby which then engages you in decisions and actions over time and these shape you as a virtuous (or vicious, if your hobbies are vices) circle. Work and flow can have the same, but it's much harder for you to actively shape - you can change jobs based on your needs, but that is very much dependent on what is on offer in the market, what the new employer agrees to provide (and what they expect from you) and how frequently you can make those life-impacting changes.

Why am I taking time to discuss what hobbies are exactly? Apart from being interested in the topic, I also want to find ways to make work more enjoyable - not becoming hobbies per se (for this may give hobbies a bad name and turn people away from their existing hobbies once they are married with money-earning work) but incorporating elements of hobbies into it as an integral part of work life (not in a specific job or employment environment, but over a person's work life).