On hobbies

I discovered to my horror, while at a recent ‘welcome the new staff’ session, that when asked what hobbies I had, there was nothing significant to speak of. If you asked me this question over ten years ago, I’d have given a few answers:

Reading. I still read but in bits and pieces. My mind’s been conditioned to read for the web, and I find myself jumping from book to book, as if they were hyperlinks. I now have plenty of books on my shelf that I’ve wanted to read, but had hardly any time to read them.

Art. I stopped designing web pages and have given up doing anything fancy to my blog. I used to be a great cartoonist up to ACJC days (where my comic books would be confiscated by teachers), and then somehow while studying Law, things dried up.

Music. Despite doing less heavy reading and drawing, I still continued to write music in my home studio for the usual audience of one (i.e. me). At most I’d let a few very trusted friends in on my projects, as they would give constructive advice. You could say music was the last frontier remaining. Then, in February this year I stopped my Jazz piano lessons because I lost the drive to practice. As my hours grew longer I lost the will to sit in my studio, make recordings and figure out technical glitches between my PowerMac and other equipment. I just abandoned the studio, too.

I don’t suppose playing Mob Wars on Facebook counts for much of a hobby, and it’s time to wean myself off these time-wasters anyway.

So in effect, I did have hobbies but somehow they kind of … hob-bled away from me.

I hope to renew my lost loves now that I have a short break before the killer course begins.