Category: Thoughts

I’ve spent the past four years seeking a disruptive way of doing things. That includes biohacking, career shifts, travel, focusing on writing, among other things. We live in an age of disruptive technology, and there’s no telling where the next paradigm shift will come from.

Being prepared for it doesn’t mean knowing what it is. Rather, it is expecting it to happen, and merely being prepared.

I think it’s telling that the pandemic sent us into a panic spiral in the way that it did. As a nation, and maybe as a global community, we weren’t prepared for the response required in such a situation.

Anticipation is key for the positive, and negative, adjustments to come.

The internet gives us an unrivaled tool for accessing information. It has no equivalent. It is a library, forum, school, and community. However, its prevalence is also its disadvantage.

How easy is it to become distracted while browsing the internet. To let our minds, inclined to wander through a biological imperative, just flit from item to item. The vastness of what can be found through mere keystrokes is boundless.

We rely on those who cultivate the internet for us. Give our attention to the screen through which we access this information.

But at the end of the day, it’s still a screen. It’s nothing more a windowpane through which we’re choosing to experience the world. Its content is ephemeral, not tangible.

Sure, getting outside is hard right now. We’ve all been cooped up. But it’s important to still try and have meaningful, real-world interactions. Not just the online ones.

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?

There’s a lot to be said for languishing in inactivity. Pablo Picasso is quoted: “Without great solitude, no serious work is possible.”

And this enforced solitude (which may or may not be ending) is an amazing opportunity to find things within you to give to the world. Or, try new things.

We don’t know what’s good and what’s not. So why not just put it out there? If now isn’t convenient to create something, it’s likely no time ever will be.