ITRH #4: When are many hobbies too many?
Hi.
How have you been?
I have been busy. Very busy. Saying life’s been hectic would be a lie, simply because I’m not letting it get to that point, and yet busy I am.
Oh, if you’re new here, this is Into the Rabbit Hole. It’s a biweekly (at least I try) newsletter written by yours truly (hi, I’m Kevin). It usually features links to stuff I’ve produced, links to stuff I’ve consumed, and musings on life I share nowhere else. Welcome! You can always unsubscribe, if you don’t like it here.
I’ve been working on too many things at the same time. On Sunday, on overkill, we’re finally — after months of preparation — launching a membership.
I’m both excited and a little scared. It’s one thing to create content and get paid through ads, but it’s a completely different beast to ask readers to actually support you. To open up their wallet and pay you for your writing.
I have no feeling if this is going to be a success or not. Paying for content in the gaming niche isn’t really a thing yet (I think? I never found proper examples). Some people do it, but it isn’t even close to the tech-writing scene where you have behemoths like Stratechery and Platformer.
I’d like to believe that we could help the whole scene to move forward, but that might just be hubris speaking.
Wish us luck! (You can read the landing page early.)
I’ve also been blogging. Since I last sent out this newsletter, I shared the following:
But my most important post was one called ”On Being child-free”. I think this is the first time so many people got in touch to tell me how this blogpost resonated with them.
But I also heard from parents that liked the post and wanted to share their view on things. A civilized internet, what a rare thing.
One of my favourite types of YouTube videos are slice-of-life videos. These sometimes silent videos share random scenes from the uploader’s life. Sometimes they are coupled with bouts of wisdom shared by the YouTuber, or reviews for products they own. My favourite channels are nao., Andres Vidoza (he’s a tech YouTuber, but he has a Day in the Life playlist), Chris Tang, and JustMerk (Merk is fitness focused).
I often think I could do the same thing. Then I get self-conscious wondering what I even want to share, why should people care. But that’s a stupid reason.
So I’m working on Season 1 of clioTV (this name is a Work-in-Progress).
It will have 8 episodes, and go live in November. It will feature all the topics I’m interested in, so you can expect an amalgam of everything.
I’ll announce here when I’m ready to launch.
All these projects have me wondering when a lot of hobbies are too many hobbies.
I have: the gym, reading, video games, running overkill, blogging and writing this newsletter, YouTube soon. All while having a full-time job, trying to be a good partner, and a good friend.
Strangely, I don’t feel overwhelmed. Rather, not having any of this would make me feel that way. Not knowing what to do, or what to fall back on scares me more than running out of energy or burning out.
All this, despite being a very Type B person. Almost makes you doubt that Type A/Type B personalities is actual science??
Ok, that’s all.
See you again soon.
Kevin