I was twenty-five or twenty-six when I transitioned from hobbyist to amateur professional working in theater and film/television. Otherwise known as the time I first got paid for it. (There’s a book with that title, about the tales of Hollywood writers, which I always think of.)
The overlap from hobbyist to paid was such that it’s really all I was doing. Which is the way it’s supposed to be done I think. I had a part-time job in a gym, with a lot of flexibility, and I was auditioning and acting.
Skip ahead many years, and I don’t have a consistent hobby anymore. Well, I suppose this blog qualifies. I write nearly every day, post, and move on. So, yeah. I guess it is!
All that to say, a hobby is this wonderful expression of what interests us. An activity that we can lose ourselves in, even if only temporarily.
We don’t have to do it unless we make ourselves. But most hobbies are such that we want to do them – we don’t have to force ourselves to get up and go work on whatever it is.
Building that model airplane or adding sensors to your drone kit. Constructing Batman’s Batarang out of legos, laying down your own beats in GarageBand, or playing frisbee golf. Unfortunately, if your hobby is group-related (a sports league, or drinking around the world at Disney’s Epcot, for example) you’re sort of stuck for the time being.
But in a hobby you get to focus on your passion, mostly ignoring the outside world. And, right now, who doesn’t want a little distraction?
Michael's Musings 