The Hobbyist

 

    The Hobbyist

    Hello again, and welcome. This is Luke, and welcome to my humble podcast. So, last time I talked a bit about my work (teaching English in Japan, in case you missed it) and therefore today I thought it appropriate to talk a bit about the things I do for fun. To put it mildly, I am a man of a thousand interests; I collect hobbies like some people collect coins or postage stamps. Actually, one of my hobbies is collecting coins. I want to talk about these things because they will undoubtedly factor into later podcasts, where I will go into each in more depth, and also because I want to talk about hobbies in general, and why they are important from both a social and psychological point of view. In the future, I want to discuss a lot of different things here, like travel, politics, society, culture and science, but the lifestyle/hobby section will probably take up a pretty big chunk of bandwidth. As they say, life is short, and so you should do the things you love while you’re here.

    So before I go any further let me read out a quick laundry list of my hobbies, and give you some idea of what I’d like to chat about going forward. I’ve mentioned my lifelong interest in martial arts before, and that’s been a major focus for me. All told, I’ve taken Judo, Aikido, Karate, Kung Fu, Kickboxing, and a little bit of Jiujitsu. My approach to the martial arts is that of a generalist, where I learn what I can when I can, and try to take the best of each, incorporating them into a style that works for me. I think I mentioned I took some yoga too, which sort of ties into the martial arts, as I was taking it in part to improve my flexibility. I also run on a weekly basis, something I started casually, maybe a few times a year, and then got more into when I lived in Okinawa. There, I actually entered (and finished) two half-marathons, but to be perfectly honest I don’t plan on doing that again. I understand why some people like the challenge, it’s good to test yourself, but I just run for general health reasons, and pushing it past 7 kilometers at a time feels like overkill. If you run so far that your nipples start bleeding, I think that’s a clear sign to stop and call it a day.

    Another health-related hobby of mine is cooking, something I’ve done with varying degrees of success since I was a kid. I try to cook (key word: “try”) as a means to regulate my diet, save money on restaurants, and of course, try new things. It’s a little difficult right now because the kitchen in my apartment is atrocious, but nonetheless I have a pretty decent repertoire of recipes, and am fairly good at improvising.

    Cooking segues well into another hobby: gardening. I like growing my own fruits and veggies from scratch, there’s just a certain poetic quality to that, I think. I always liked the idea of growing exotic foods too, things you can’t usually find in a grocery store. I think someday I’d love to have a side business where I use hydroponics to grow some of the many edible plants that we just don’t make use of in Western society.

    Also, since we’re on the subject of being outdoorsy, I enjoy both hiking and camping from time to time. Naturally, the ideal window for doing either is pretty short in Canada (a few weeks between winter and black fly season really), but I’ve done a fair share of both in Japan. One of my favourite places to camp as on the beaches of Miyazaki, where we split our time between bonfires and body-boarding.

    Writing, as you may have guessed, is another hobby. I write all of this material, I kept a blog, I write short stories, and someday I’d love to publish a book, but I’ll keep you guessing as to what that will be about. If I end up getting enough support via Patreon, I may take some time off to get that done, but it’s a tall order when you’re working a full time job.

    I also like art, having taken a full year of art school between high school and university. Right now my art is mainly limited to doodling and sketching anime characters for my students, but I like painting and sculpture too. I even learned how to weld so that I could try my hand at metal sculpture. If I had a studio I would totally get back into that, but as you might imagine, welding kits are not cheap.

    Under the category of “totally random hobbies”, I also know how to juggle, something I picked up during my first teaching tour in Japan, and know how to use “poi”. Poi, in case you are unaware, is probably best described as a style of performance art, native to the Maori people of New Zealand, where one swings tethered weights in rhythmic patterns around the body. While traveling in Thailand, I happened to see someone performing this, was immediately fascinated, and essentially demanded they teach me how to do it.

    I should also mention my quasi-hobbies, which I would classify as “interests” really, since they’re passive activities. I love comics, used to collect them when I was a teenager, and consequently I’ve seen just about every superhero-themed movie and TV show there is. I love MARVEL, am currently re-watching all the movies in timeline order as I write this, and my top 5 superheroes of all time are, in order: Wolverine, Deadpool, Iron Man, Spiderman, and Thor. DC is alright, but compared to MARVEL their writing has been a bit of a train wreck. I also like watching Youtube videos, as does 99.9% of my audience I imagine, but I especially love Sci-Show, Answers with Joe, Crash Course, Atlas Pro, PBS Eons, Caspian Report, and pretty much any other channel that produces interesting science, history, or political content. Not that cat videos don’t have their place, but I can really only justify watching sitting on my butt watching Youtube for hours if I’m learning something.

    Lastly, I have to mention the hobby that I’m guessing a lot of you share, and that’s gaming. I suppose I have to qualify that a bit by saying that I don’t just play video games, but also board games, mobile games (read: Pokemon Go), and card games, most notably Magic: The Gathering. So, basically all the games. Another thing I’d love to do eventually is open a game store, not just for buying and trading games, but with actual spaces to rent and play board games as well. I was thinking of starting a Kickstarter campaign for that, but it’ll no doubt have to wait until we can all gather safely in groups again. As far as video games are concerned, I’m both a console gamer and a PC gamer, proud owner of a PS4 and long-time World of Warcraft player. For the uninitiated, World of Warcraft (or WoW), is an MMORPG, or massively multiplayer online role playing game. In fact, it was THE MMORPG back when it first came out way back in 2004, and still dominates a huge market share. At the moment, I play Classic WoW, helping to lead a group of players, or “guild”, on an Australian server called Remulos. It’s a great community, and to be honest I sort of dig being one of the only Canadians.

    So now let’s talk about hobbies in general, and let me open with a quote. I’m not 100% sure at this point if I heard this somewhere else or if this is one of my own, but if I’m plagiarizing please feel free to set me straight in the comments. Ready? Here it is: “If you want to be interesting to others, you have to be interested in things.” In other words, if all you do is work all day and watch TV all night when you get home, then I hate to break it to you, but…you’re boring. I suppose if you’re with an equally boring partner and you’re both content being boring together and raising boring little children, then ok, you do you. But, I personally don’t think this is the optimal lifestyle choice if you want to find (or keep) an interesting partner. Not only that, but if co-workers find you interesting, this will work out better for you than if they find you about as fun as watching paint dry. Hobbies are something of a social lubricant – a conversation starter, a way to bond with people, and a lot of them are cheaper than alcohol, another fallback social lubricant for a lot of people. Just speaking anecdotally, I can think of quite a few examples where I’ve made new friends and connected with new partners through a hobby. If you’re lonely, a problem that is no doubt reaching epidemic proportions right now (pardon the expression) I can think of no better way to meet new people than to join a club or group and explore an interest that you’ve been itching to explore for years. We are, after all, social creatures, and all this isolation is bad for our mental health. Even if you can only go online to take a class, that’s still going to provide you with some opportunities to meet people, and the importance of doing this cannot be overstated.

    Social networks, alongside family, are the foundation of a society, and the thing with platforms like Facebook is that often, the algorithms create an echo chamber, where one social circle never mixes with another, and you never even hear any opinions other than those you already agree with. This isolates you from society at large, in a way that’s not unlike being in a cult. When you join a hobby group however, you’re going to meet a much more random cross-section of people, and this is a healthy thing. Yes, you may meet some people whose beliefs and politics you don’t agree with, but the mere exposure to this will help keep you grounded. This sort of interaction reminds us that we are diverse in our backgrounds and beliefs, but that we can still share common interests. Finding that common ground, as a means to counteract the “Facebook Effect”, and to broaden our social perspective, is vitally important, I believe, in keeping our societies functional. And as I said, you may find a hot date in the process.

    Another reason for people to adopt a hobby is that they actually keep you young and healthy, in a number of ways. Studies have shown that people who spend time engaged in hobbies tend to have better psychological and physical functioning overall than those who don’t. Firstly, being engaged in an immersive activity tends to stimulate your brain and reduce stress, and this means that you tend to be “sharper” in general, and have better long-term cognitive outcomes as you age. Secondly, the simple act of doing something you enjoy actually helps alleviate depression. A number of studies have looked at this, and some doctors will even prescribe taking up a hobby to people with mild depressive symptoms, in lieu of anti-depressants. Finally, a physical hobby, whatever it may be, is a key ingredient in staying healthy in the long term. If you don’t use it, you lose it, and that’s why most health experts will tell you that something like 30 minutes of physical activity a day is a bare minimum for maintaining your health. Stretching, going for a walk – these are a good start, but if you can manage to find some kind of physical activity that actually interests you, then it won’t seem like work. I know a lot of people will say that they’re allergic to exercise, but even if nothing on Earth could drag you into a gym, there is still something out there for you. The trick, I think, is starting small and forming a habit out of being more active. A lot of us may have negative associations with sports, we may feel generally uncomfortable with our bodies, or feel like we don’t know where to start, but all of these hurdles can be overcome. Even if you have a physical handicap, there is always something you can do, and something is always better than nothing. If you feel like you need to consult a doctor, of course you should do so, but just remember that every day of our lives we are either growing weaker or growing stronger, and that decision is up to us.

    Finally, I just want to say, even though you may have heard it before, that you never know until you try. Explore a little. Say yes to everything. If you’re nervous, then feel the fear and do it anyway. Whatever it is, maybe you’ll suck, but so what? The fun is in getting better. The fun is in meeting new people. While I may not be American, I do believe that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are why we’re all here. Give yourself permission to pursue your happiness. Thank you for joining me, and I hope to see you all again next time.