A short video I stumbled on (this one!!) nudged me to jot a few lines and think out loud. I won’t recap it point by point, but in my own words: we’ve let hobbies slide into productivity gravity. Play gets rebranded as a prelude to output; experiments become “content drafts.” We start something because it looks fun and within days we’re optimizing workflows, benchmarking progress, and mentally pitching an audience that didn’t ask to be here. Every session is supposed to level us up, sharpen a skill, or feed some bigger plan.
Social platforms speed that shift: the doing blurs into documenting, and once you’re anticipating a viewer, curiosity gets stage fright. Add the ever-present guilt that leisure must “pay off,” and the joy drains out. Hobbies used to be the one place you could be joyfully bad with no consequences; now they’re treated like unpaid internships for an identity.
And… I’m kind of not outside this. I’m very productivity-oriented; I’ve turned runs into dashboards and even tried scheduling “unstructured output.” I know the itch to make everything pay off. So here’s me trying to resist it.
What if the thing that doesn’t lead anywhere is exactly where you should go more often? What if “wasted time” is just time that refused to audition for your résumé? What if the value of an hour is sometimes measured only by the grin you can’t quite justify? If that sounds soft, remember: no great obsession survives if it’s smothered by outcomes on day one.
Here are my 50 cents:
reclaim “amateur”
Amateur comes from “lover.” Doing something just because you love it isn’t childish… it’s honest. “Amateur hour” should mean the hour when love gets the wheel and doesn’t have to show results. (Please hold your applause; love is shy.)
two lanes, one mind
Keep two clear modes: a Play Lane where the only question is “did this feel alive?” and a Craft Lane where you chase skill on purpose. Put a little toll booth between them so you switch by choice, not by panic.
private > public
Try 10:1: ten sessions nobody sees for every one you share. Add “content latency”: nothing leaves the “studio” for 30 days. Time is a great bouncer: it separates curiosity from performative itch.
no-output contracts
Pick mediums that evaporate: chalk drawings, sandcastles, improvised melodies you never record, soup. Perishability keeps the spirit safe.
maintenance as a hobby
Fix a shirt, oil a chain, sharpen a knife, repot a plant. These loops have no finale, which is perfect when you’re trying to escape “What did this produce?”
small circles, not stages
Find a tiny group that swaps rough attempts instead of ratings: Bad Art Night, Wonky Beats Club, whatever. Presence beats performance.
friction is your friend
Use tools that slow you down: film, a sketchbook, a hand drum. Slower tools keep you from turning play into a system before you’ve even felt it. (If your brain asks for a workflow, hand it a cookie.)
identity on a dimmer
Nouns stick. “I am a ___” can become a cage. Prefer verbs: I paint, I skate, I noodle on synths. Verbs are easy to set down and pick up again. (Beware hobbies that hand you a jersey on day one.)
seasonal on purpose
Let hobbies migrate with the season and your mood. Declare an off-season guilt-free. Loyalty here is optional.
failure budget
Give yourself a quota of flops per month. Not tolerated, but required. Fifteen bad thumbnails, twenty miss-hit kickflips, three musical dead ends. Now “I failed” becomes “I’m on pace.” (Congrats, you’re crushing it at being terrible.)
protect your attention
Treat attention like a budget. Block a few hours where goals, metrics, and “shoulds” can’t spend it. Boredom and wandering need cash too. (No, two pomodoros don’t offset a doomscroll.)
The video was a wake-up call, and this is my attempt to carve some space back out. Try a single shift to start: a zero output day, a secret streak, a failure fund. Keep it quiet or share it far and wide. I’m not here as your boss, but merely the guy who likes to draw in the dirt before it rains.
BTW, this isn’t an argument against skill, mastery, or sharing your work. It’s an argument against skipping the part where you get to fool around. The part where you’re allowed to be terrible, to try colors that clash, to loop the same four bars for an afternoon because the bassline makes your spine happy. There’s a phase before progress, a prehistory of delight, that can’t be optimized without being erased.