Just Kristin

On the way back from tak­ing a rest, I came up with what I had ini­tially thought of as a viable def­i­n­i­tion of the word “hobby”: that which is done reg­u­larly for the joy of the doer. What if some­one loved their work? Well, then, their work would also be their hobby — this was still within the scope of my def­i­n­i­tion, I thought. How­ever, what about group activ­i­ties, such as play­ing on a com­mu­nity sports team? There, you have a respon­si­bil­ity to your team­mates to do well, to play even if you aren’t feel­ing the urge. At this point, does it stop being a hobby? Is it only still a hobby if you can walk away from it when it does not bring you joy? Or, is a hobby a hobby when the joy aspect out­weighs the less than joy­ful? Was I wrong about it being ok to use “hobby” and “work” for a sin­gle person’s activ­ity? Are they instead oppo­site ends of a spec­trum? To com­plete the range of def­i­n­i­tions, do we add a third aspect — that of “chore”? This solu­tion doesn’t sat­isfy me, because the word “hobby” implies that tak­ing part in the activ­ity is a choice which, save for per­verse minds, includes joy in the doing, while “work” may or may not include that same joy — the word itself does not hint at which.

Why I write about these things when I am spin­ning inco­her­ently around the monkey-tree is beyond me. I am capa­ble of more com­pelling prose, I promise. I will try again later.