How many hobbies is too many?
This week’s question comes to us from Gord Fynes:
How many hobbies is too many? There's only so many hours in the day, days in the week, etc.
One. One hobby is too many.
I hate hobbies. Rather, I hate calling things hobbies. The word hobby is almost always used apologetically. It carries a certain amount of shame, an element of wasted time, or at least time not well-spent, certainly time spent not “earning.” And therein lies the problem.
Let’s get personal. When I was a kid, my father “earned” by doing construction work. He’d leave early in the morning and come home caked in cement from laying foundations. He was not a happy person to be around. He hated his job and he took it out on his family. After dinner, which was never pleasant, he would either disappear out the door or disappear into the basement.
The basement was off limits to us. It’s where he painted. Years later, I got brave enough to go door there. Behind a curtained-off area, I found a workbench full of intricately painted tiles, always in blue. I found coffee cans full of brushes, some of them carefully handmade. And I found family photographs taped to the wall. All of this was new to me, and I couldn’t understand why someone who was always so full of rage towards me would have my school photo taped to the wall above his workbench. In some ways I still don’t.
As years passed, his secret became less of a secret. He’d occasionally bring a tile up and hang it in the kitchen. Eventually, I’d learn the tiles were called azulejos. Eventually, I’d learn that he was a trained azulejo painter in his native Portugal, and well-regarded for it. Then he immigrated to the United States where he laid cement to earn for his family. And I wondered what he would’ve been like if he could’ve spent his life doing what he loved. Selfishly, I wondered what my life would’ve been like if he could’ve spent his life doing what he loved.
As more years passed, my father realized I had some form of artistic talent and I was allowed behind the curtain, especially if he needed lettering. He sucked at lettering.
When I decided I wanted to go to art school, my mother objected, but my father did not. And while this did not make up for years of abuse, it was nonetheless appreciated.
I hate hobbies. Hobbies end up being curtained-off room in the basement where we hide the life we wish we could be living.
In my own adult life, I do lots of things. I design shit. I paint. I do workshops. I make zines. I write. I love doing all of those things, and I manage to do some of them for money. But to me they are equally important. And while I have to acknowledge that all of this takes a certain amount of luck and privilege, it also takes a plan.
When we started our design shop (the money work), one of the first things we did was set boundaries for ourselves. We worked from 9–6 and from Monday–Friday. I never sold my weekends, and I never lived beyond my means in a way that required me to sell my weekends. As time went on I did all I could to reduce the things I did for money so I could spend time doing the things I enjoyed that didn’t make money. Both things were equally important.
Is this privileged? Yes. Is this a privilege that we need to extend to every human being on earth? Also fucking yes, in a big way. (And if we have the money to fund a genocide, we have the money for UBI.)
Hobby is capitalism’s word. It’s a crumb from capitalism’s table. Capitalism is happy that you have a hobby, especially if it can sell you HO-scale train sets to complete it, but that hobby can never be taken as seriously as what capitalism might need from you. (Oh, and that thing capitalism might need from you? Well, design is your passion, so they don’t really need to pay you adequately for that, do they?)
Sadly, capitalism is still with us, and we need to earn. So when you have to clock in, clock in. And when you clock out, clock the fuck out. Take off that stupid watch that sends texts and emails to your wrist. Toss your laptop in the basement. Get behind that drumkit, get in front of that easel, get your ass in the garden, straddle that potter’s wheel, strap on the messenger bag with all your paint cans and nozzles in it, and get the fuck to work.
All those are work.
🙋 Got a question? Ask it.
📖 Ordering zines means I can spend more time painting. Plus, you get stickers and a zine.
👎 An industry that can’t hold on to the people it most needs is an industry that doesn’t deserve air. Vivianne is a friend, and I am so proud of everything she’s done.
📻 I’ve been enjoying the new podcast Rebel Spirit from Akilah Hughes, produced by my friend Dan Sinker.