I need a hobby

The problem I have with hobbies is that I inevitably reach a point of wondering why I’m doing them. It would be nice to do something for its own sake. The whole point of a hobby is that it’s something you choose to do, that you don’t monetize it, that it’s a discipline you can return to throughout your life with continual improvement. That sure sounds good on paper.

Plus, hobbies fall into a few broad categories. You’ve got your sports and exercise hobbies, many of which I’ve done with some success throughout the years. I took up snowboarding as an adult, suffered a devastating injury, returned some years later and suffered a less devastating but far more definitive injury vis à vis me going “fuck this.” More recently I spent more than 4 years regularly lifting weights, and while I got a lot stronger I was still a flabby weakling. At some point I just didn’t want to go anymore. At least some of that was due to the mental effort it took to ignore the extreme MAGA vibes of my gym.

A lot of people have food-based hobbies. They like cooking and baking. I hate cooking and baking. I don’t find them fun or satisfying. And I really hate cleaning up afterward. I tried homebrewing beer a few times, which was a bit more rewarding in the end but something always went catastrophically wrong plus I’m an alcoholic. Maybe homebrewing craft soda?

Music? I have indeed picked up and abandoned the guitar over the years. The last time I got into it, I bought some primo effects pedals and a pricey guitar, and reader, it sounded fucking glorious. I practiced scales and noticed myself getting better, and then, after months of effort, felt still no closer to actually sounding any good. But the real reason I stopped playing was because I started playing Balatro. That was like two years ago.

I guess I do play a fair amount of video games, but I don’t consider that a hobby as such. Maybe I’m shortchanging myself but putting in the time to platinum Resident Evil: Requiem has not, in fact, helped me self-actualize. I also watch movies, although not as much as I’d like, and read books, although really not as much as I’d like. I guess these are hobbies, but they’re not the kind of thing I’m talking about. I’m talking about something that has an end result.

Writing could be considered a hobby, if approached consistently and with rigor. I suppose I’m working on that (the first part), at least. Again, though, where am I going with this? Am I gonna write a poem, a short story, a novel? How many of those have I abandoned over the years? Is success contingent on actually publishing something or on knowing I saw a piece through to completion and did the best I could? I can definitely answer that last one.

In the meantime if there’s some kind of authority I can appeal to — a hobby lobby, if you will — to redefine lying on the couch and staring into space as a productive use of personal time, that might be my best bet.