Get a hobby

But please do not monetise it, put it on Instagram or give it a hashtag

Do you have a hobby?

My husband swears by people who do. He used to run a big independent TV company; the hobby element in the CV of potential employees was where he went first.

“I used to ignore what sort of degree people had, and where they had been to university,” he says, “and go straight for their hobbies. I once employed someone purely because he said his hobby was knitting.” That person went on to become Executive Editor, Arts at the BBC, so quite a good shout.

Trainspotting BEFORE the film

Last week we had lunch with someone who casually said “I have no hobbies.” What? If you have no hobbies, surely that means your life is basically work, eat, hang out, sleep.

This formula reminds me of Philip Larkin, who said to the Paris Review in 1982;

“My life is as simple as I can make it. Work all day, cook, eat, wash up, telephone, hack writing, drink, television in the evenings. I almost never go out. I suppose everyone tries to ignore the passing of time: some people by doing a lot, being in California one year and Japan the next; or there’s my way—making every day and every year exactly the same. Probably neither works.”

The interviewer (Robert Philips), from the Paris Review, clearly somewhat aghast, says

“You didn’t mention a schedule for writing . . .”

To which Larkin coolly responds, “Yes, I was afraid you’d ask about writing. Anything I say about writing poems is bound to be retrospective, because in fact I’ve written very little since moving into this house, or since High Windows, or since 1974, whichever way you like to put it. But when I did write them, well, it was in the evenings, after work, after washing up (I’m sorry: you would call this “doing the dishes”). It was a routine like any other. And really it worked very well: I don’t think you can write a poem for more than two hours. After that you’re going round in circles, and it’s much better to leave it for twenty-four hours, by which time your subconscious or whatever has solved the block and you’re ready to go on.

The best writing conditions I ever had were in Belfast, when I was working at the University there. Another top-floor flat, by the way. I wrote between eight and ten in the evenings, then went to the University bar till eleven, then played cards or talked with friends till one or two. The first part of the evening had the second part to look forward to, and I could enjoy the second part with a clear conscience because I’d done my two hours. I can’t seem to organize that now.”

(From Required Writing, by Philip Larkin)

Poetry, for Larkin, was clearly not a hobby, although he did it outside his working hours. Plus, he also listened to jazz. That could have been filed under ‘hobbies’.

Of course, Larkin lived in an era without smartphones. I suggest that these, more than anything, have destroyed the notion of hobbies, old fashioned hobbies which are apparently on the decline. The dictionary definition of a hobby is an activity that you do when you aren’t at work. For fun.

No screens here

Hence, not thinking about monetising your Instagram followers while traveling the world. Or building up a huge YouTube audience who might then watch you (carefully edited), building a garden shed. Even if woodworking is your hobby.

Screens and the online world are not only deeply addictive, but they are time thieves which push the joy of the hobby into second place behind the dopamine-enhanced thrill of getting ‘likes’ and crafting a screen persona.

They can stop you from plunging deeply into anything, be it making bowls out of glass or reading a book, let alone trainspotting or stamp collecting.

Birdwatching, a classic hobby, has had a bit of a renaissance, but maybe largely because it is connected to apps which can identify what type of warbler is chirping at you. It seems that perhaps it is now impossible to have a hobby unconnected to an app.

Equally, in our performative age, many hobbies have become attached to extreme competition. It’s not enough to do your hobby quietly, rather badly and on your own. You need to be brilliant, do it on stage, and preferably in a way that there can be a giant medal attached to it.

Now that the London Marathon has become a 2-day behemoth involving 100,000 runners, I am going to rethink my running hobby.

Equally, I was completely put off from my very amateurish hobby of playing the piano when I was foolish (and vain) enough to accept an invitation to take part in a concert hosted on stage at King’s Place in London, and found out, far, far too late, that even though I am a complete show-off, I really hated playing on a Steinway Grand in front of an audience of about 300 people.

Why do people expect amateur painters to exhibit in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition? Why must weekend gardeners think about having RHS Open Days? And why have our hobbies been kidnapped by peak time TV?

Everything, from woodworking and crocheting, to cake-baking, dress making and even laying the table, now has either a hashtag, a TV competition, or a bespoke reality show hosted by Tom Daley/Kirsty Allsop/Mel Giedroyc. Followed closely by a huge online area where everyone who ‘posts’ about it is an expert.

But if you can keep all the online noise at bay, it is worth remembering that ordinary, modest hobbies are good for you. And they are fun. In researching this Substack (not a hobby, even though I enjoy writing it) I came across a perfumery blog called 4160Tuesdays, with a list of 8 reasons why you ought to develop a proper, unmonetized, hobby. Such as making perfume.

It’s such a good list, I am going to reproduce it here:

1. Hobbies are good for your memory

2. Hobbies reduce stress

3. Hobbies give your brain a bit of distraction

4. They help you enter a “flow state” of deep concentration

5. They strengthen your sense of self (“Look at my new cardi”)

6. They reconnect us to tradition (“Listen to me play the bagpipes”)

7. They make life more interesting

8. They BRING YOU JOY

For 10 years I helped run the 2^nd South Islington Brownies, and I can confirm that basically all we did with the Brownies on a Friday night in the church hall, was hobbies. Things like moulding small clay seals, and then baking them in the oven. Or making paper “fortune tellers”. Sewing teddy bears. Baking. Learning to skip properly.

The Brownies are onto something. Please can we all reengage with our inner hobby, remember it’s OK to be bad at things, and do things with nobody (Ok, bar our families) watching and zero screen engagement. I have started the piano again. I practise every day. Gradually, I am getting better and better. I am never going to play in public, and that’s OK.