Ah, to be young and have all the time in the world. Not that I’m “old” in any sense of the word, but having a full-time job, wife, son and this pesky writing addiction I can’t kick doesn’t really leave me with a lot of free time to pursue other hobbies.
When I was in middle school, I read and drew comics for fun.
Ten years later, I don’t do these things.
Is that the price of focusing on a craft and devoting all your energy to it? It seems that the older people get, the more specialized and narrowly focused they get as well.
Specialization is the death knell of staying sharp creatively.
Creativity is all about taking two things that were never together before and connecting them in a way that’s meaningful. If you never try new things or dabble in different hobbies, you run the risk of not seeing and being inspired by those new connections.
Go outside your specialized comfort zone and do something that requires an entirely different part of your brain.
What passion have you given up that you want to rekindle? Sound off in the comments.
My problem is that I’ll lose my enthusiasm for a hobby and never recover it. Back in High School, for a good two years I was really into webdesign. I made my very own website and learned HTML and CSS all on my own. Somewhere along the line I got distracted from the hobby and even though I want to create a website again, I can’t seem to muster the enthusiasm to actually do it. On the other hand though, I am doing other things, like currently I learning Japanese through podcasts.
I think perhaps I have too many potential hobbies. My goal this year is to find a balance of them all.
Left by Jeff on March 22nd, 2007