Okay, this is not really a fair question. I have written elsewhere that I am one of those people who has too many hobbies and avocations and interests, and (perhaps foolishly) attempts to pursue them all, so asking me to choose one as my favorite is a little like asking me which of my children or grandchildren is my favorite.
The beauty of having multiple and varied interests is that you can shift from one to another whenever you like. My hobby interests are sometimes seasonal–for example, I like hiking and biking. While I try to walk frequently year-round, the best seasons for pursuing these things are the spring, summer and fall. My interest in woodworking is also season-bound, to a certain extent. My garage wood shop is heated, but during the coldest parts of the Kansas winter, it takes a long time to warm the shop to a reasonable temperature.* On the other hand, in the middle of a summer heatwave, with outside temperatures in triple digits, it’s miserable out there–my shop isn’t air-conditioned–so a lot of my woodworking gets done in the spring and fall.
Some of the things I like to do require some mental intensity–like programming microcontrollers or other coding projects. But because I don’t do those things every day, it can take a while to get back up to speed with the language I’m working with or with the software I use to write the code and so on. Once I’m back “in the zone,” I can write code, test, debug, etc. for a good long while, but eventually it becomes tiring, and it’s time for something else.
But being able to move from one interest to the next means that I am very rarely bored–when one thing becomes tedious, or when I get to a mental impasse, I can switch off to something else, and this seems to have the effect of allowing my brain to subliminally sort out whatever it was that I was stuck on before. Then I can switch back.
There is something that all of my hobbies and interests have in common, though: they all afford me opportunities to learn–whether it’s new woodworking skills, new guitar or banjo licks, new coding techniques, or exploring new trails, etc.–I’m constantly learning, and that could very well be my favorite way to spend my leisure time, now that I think of it.
So maybe it was a fair question after all.
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(Posted in response to 1/25/2024 prompt.)
*Did you know that wood glue doesn’t work properly if you try to use it at a temperature lower than about 55 degrees? This varies somewhat with the type of glue, but at temperatures lower than 55 or 60°F, common yellow wood glue becomes chalky and doesn’t cure properly. I learned this the hard way.
doug heacock: words 