Just Wondering

[ladysprite]

What do people without hobbies do? I know they exist; as far as I can tell in just about any workplace the vast majority of the people there just don't have any real interests or activities they participate in outside of their job. So.... what do they do with their time?

I've got a half-day today. I spent the morning shopping for ingredients for recipes to try at this weekend's SCA Cook's Guild meeting and starting preparatory cooking for that; while the eggs were boiling I worked on translating the next part of a period Italian cookbook. Now I'm going to work on writing up part of a period dance manual; if that gets boring I have a shawl I'm crocheting that I can work on. Tonight I'm having friends over for a gaming session. Last night was dance practice, this weekend is Cook's Guild, the weekend after that is a gaming convention.

If I didn't have any outside interests, I think I'd end up just growing into the sofa. I can't fathom that lifestyle.

Comments

[mindways]

siderea's list seems pretty accurate, at least insofar as the sense I've gotten on the matter.

(This page references an average TV-viewing of 4 hours/day...and for every one of us who watches little or no TV (hi!) there's someone out there who's watching nearly twice as much as that average, or multiple people somewhat above that average.)

[griffinick.livejournal.com]

Housework can take up an immense amount of time, and if you are also working full-time at a demanding and exhausting job and raising a family, I can understand entirely how it could appear that you do nothing else but watch TV.
However, are there things they would like to do but don't feel that they have the timefor now? I know my parents starting doing all sorts of things upon retirement (my mom learned to play the harp, got into photography, beaded jewelry and crocheting; my dad became more political and volunteers at a billion different homeless shelters/soup kitchens; they're also both traveling more, taking internet history and art courses and doing more gardening), and I would assume that might be the case for a lot of people.

[mindways]

*nod* I'd mentally lumped housework in with siderea's "Nest. (Work on their homes.)" category; I should have said so explicitly.

(It may also worth noting that "4 hours spent watching TV" doesn't necessarily translate to "4 hours spent doing nothing else" - I know some people watch TV while (say) doing the dishes. Or stuff like knitting, but that gets back into the "hobbies" realm.)