As a hobby I always studied entomology in the field by myself and when not in the field would read about the insects i discovered. By the time I was 10 years old i knew more about moths and butterflies and other insects than most people will ever know in their lives.

I continued with that hobby, studied it at the university level and eventually it became my job

"who sir may call themselves an entomologist when the subject is far too vast for any single human being to comprehend"

Just your average (older) Joe here. My passion is software development. Been doing it for over 25yrs.
Never gets old. It's always moving (new technologies). And to me its an art form. How I view it anyway.

I know, pretty boring compared to Nixer and his "girls", but hey not everyone lives in Florida. :-)

Nah man...you forgot your other hobby...family.

Beat's the heck out of mine.....most of the time

Cheers Nixer!

And to you my friend.

I am prone to trivialize alot of stuff, but being a family man is not one of them.

I guess I disguised my passion/hobby by turning it my career . It took awhile but I got there eventually (with some hard work,a lot of luck and some help along the way).

Thanks guys for the rich amount of response, even if some seem to contradict my initial viewpoint. Which is kinda the point of doing something "semi-scientific", isn't it?


The background, if anyone's interested. As I've recently mentioned somewhere here I'm starting a second job as certified life advisor/counselor, going to focus on 20-40 yo guys with troubles and how they can develop both their personality and their identity. Identity in turn for me has a lot to do with "what we do" - job, hobbies etc.

In recent discussions it came up that a lot of them have a serious interest in something, but no real passion for it. So either they never start it, or they drop it quickly after trying.

Now my theory is that most hobbies which turn into real passion fulfill one of two requirements, or ideally both:

1) On a social level, a hobby is something that both gives us a tribe to belong with (which is a basic psychological desire) and allows us to identify our own individuality (which is another basic psychological desire.)

In my case, I go racing with my buddies (tribe, group I belong with) but can other people tell about it (which makes me more individual/different from those who don't race).

A hobby that's completely solitary would not meet these requirements. That's why I would have assumed gaming, reading etc. all done alone without exchange of opinion is for example "escapism" and not very "passion".

2) The second requirement for a hobby that I didn't check here in this survey, is "measurement of improvement". I.e. I think a lot of people like doing something where they can see themselves getting better at it. Because it strengthens our sense of Self-Effectiveness which is another basic psychological need.


So I would have argued that to have real long-term passion for doing something you'll either need #1 or #2, and ideally both. Running for example for many people is escapism (switching off their thoughts). Training for a half-marathon or even a triathlon is usually passion, and that also offers both #1 and #2.

Yet a few responses here seem to negate this theory. Though it would now depend on further study on those persons. For example I can imagine that a person who gets #1 and #2 a lot somewhere else can have passion for a solitary hobby as well.


Curious if anyone wants to offer his thoughts on that background.

Not in my case now or in my 20s, no. I'm introverted the social aspect of it is irrelevant to me, so no #1, and I never really excelled at anything :D, so no #2.

I'd say no to #1 and a 50/50 to #2. I don't know if you have to be good at it, but at least not suck, otherwise you would loose interest.

I did become better at programming, but when I started I really didn't care that my programs were crap (I still kind of of don't), the feel of self-improvement comes comparatively late (years) so you can't really feel you're getting better while you're doing it. Sure in my 20s I could say I was better than in my 14s, and now in my 30s I can say I'm better than in my 20s, but I couldn't say in my 20s that I was getting better right there in the moment.

My thought on how hobbies become hobbies is this: you like something and you do it, you don't stop to think about it much, you're just busy doing it. Next thing you know you're spending waaay too much time on it. In a sense, you don't pick a hobby, a hobby picks you.

I imagine that escaping reality IS part of any hobby, too, by necessity. Simply because it's a passion and will pop into your head and replace other things.

You can seat on the crapper and you brain has two choices: think about your problems and that 27% interest rate that's crap against that 35% inflation rate, or think about that algorithm that you were working on yesterday night. Guess which path it will take.

Okay, so you're the living contradiction

Some people seem to pick up hobbies (and stick with them, get better at them) naturally, whereas others just kind of "drift" trough their life without a real interest that kicks them into gear. The later are the guys who watch a lot of TV, sit on the couch, go for a drink, work for the money and otherwise just never experience the passion or interest in much anything beyond a very rudimentary existence and social life.

I'd really like to figure out how to turn the "inhibited" kind of guy into the "active" kind of guy by understand what it is that makes us take on and stay with an interest.

If you find the answer I think you can end up being a very wealthy man.


Not to get too off topic but this reminds me of what Agent Smith told Neo in the Matrix Reloaded film about "having a purpose". I think that's the key for any person. If they don't feel that they serve any purpose then they will live a life like what you described in your post.

Heh, reading that made me realize that one of my hobbies used to be computers, back when they were new.
I did little bit of programming and tinkering. Then I left college, needed a job, and computers was a new, growing field that was quick and easy to enter. I never left. That was 20 years ago.

So, while I still game (which I've been doing since Atari Pong and board games), I don't really mess with computers at home for fun aside from upgrading my lone home PC because it's my job and I get my fill there.

Oh, and I'm also Panzer's age, I don't think I mentioned that before.



The Jedi Master

Age 45:

Hobbies these days are: Sport shooting (rifle and handguns), hunting (reindeer and moose), roleplaying games (currently DnD 5ed), hiking and gaming (but my attention span these days is short).

I'd love to learn to fly, but it's somewhat costly and money I don't have right now

if the inhibited man can learn to make others feel genuinely interesting and important he is likely to receive the same in return and will probably become more active and engaged. the catch is being committed to honesty and sincerity.

My Dad has been building and flying RC airplanes for over 50 years now. The hours he spent in his workshop in the winter, the days he spent at the field (both involving his family whenever we wanted to), and the friends he has made over the years have been a great benefit to his physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health.

Me , I was never the builder he was, but I have been a bit of a field rat for most of my life. PC gaming died out due to being burned out from working in the IT field for so long. The guitar playing has slowed greatly due to arthritis and well, being a bit lazy about it. Now that I have a lot of free time on my hands, I have been trying to think of a new (inexpensive) hobby. Something in between stamp collecting an sky diving would be nice.

Yeah man me too. Most of the ideas I come up with have "implications".

Interesting and quite profound thought, thanks.

Several things to respond to, here goes.


Let me take you down a parallel path for a minute.
Charities: Do you pick the charity or does the charity pick you?

Sometimes a charity chooses you:
A child with a mental disability,
A sister with leukemia,
A wife with breast cancer,
A husband with lung cancer,
A war buddy with PTSD,
A parent with Alzheimer's,
These are all charities that reach out and grab you by the heart and don�t let go.

Then there are people that are looking to choose a charity:
And they can choose among many things:
Save the animal shelter dogs (instead of helping the homeless),
Save the rain-forest (instead of planting a tree in their backyard),
Save the whales,
Political party,
Local theater or orchestra or museum.

Also many people are simply not looking for a charity to give to. For whatever reason, genetics, life situation, etc, they are not ready and waiting to be God�s gift to some charity.

Obviously, some charities are more deserving than others.

Thanks for reading my long winded opinion,
there are very few opportunities to talk about such things.
JD
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Hobbies that you can share !!! (social angle),
Talking to friends at the bowling alley > Posting online > Not talking to a soul
Multi-Player games > Single Player games
R/C-Cars at your local off-road track > Car-Racing Sim at your house,
R/C-Airplanes at a club flying field > Flight Sim at home,
Car-Racing sim in your garage man-cave > Flight Sim in your den,
I mean you can have a party and see who is fastest in your car-racing sim cockpit,
not so much with your flight sim cockpit.
(Sometimes you still need a hobby for winter nights as well as summer afternoons)

Advancing your skills and collecting merit badges.
Yes there are environments with opportunities to go from student-pilot to private-pilot to freight-pilot to airline-pilot, (or student-pilot to fighter-pilot to wing-commander). But I still prefer the R/C arena, did you finish the race, or did you crash, are you ready for another lap.

From an on-again / off-again Psych major
JD
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Aptitudes: In another forum people are talking about the demise of building rc-airplanes, and the hobby shops that support them. My reply was that model trains have gone out of style, model trains like the HO scale model trains with model landscapes in peoples basements. These are hobbies where people �fiddle� with small things (I am into rc models, while my wife was into quilting). An �aptitude� test might be shed some light on your peoples �aptitudes�.

Major Caveat: depending on the �trouble� that your population has gotten into, they probably are not qualified to go into a public sector career (civil service, teaching, law-enforcement, military-industrial-complex, health-care). Almost all of the public sector jobs need; A-some form of Security Clearance, and B-some additional college education.

Good luck with that caveat,
think about Mike Rowe�s �Dirty Jobs�.
JD

My wife's hobby is kant klossen or bobbin lace making, it is both a solitary and a communal activity, she and a few friends go to college one night per week to learn about making lace, she uses it to keep her fingers nimble and occupy her brain as the concentration on the work is supposed to help against dementia.

She is quite worried about developing it as her mother, grandmother, and aunt all have it. It is a terrifying thought, I see my mother in law in the local nursing home and as they say here, she knows from nothing. We have watched the gradual decline of her mother mentally over the past 10 years and now she does not know if it is dinner time or Tuesday.
Today I am going in to visit her and take her photograph for her new ID card, it is 10 years since I last took her pic for her ID card.

Hmmmm, I don't think I have hobbies so much as activities.

I goof around on the computer too much, but it's fun and doesn't hurt anyone.

Rise of Flight, Fallout 4, and surfing the web.

And I built the airplane, which is a lot of fun to think about as well as do. It's rather disheartening that it's been down for repairs and with weather and other stuff they haven't gone fast enough for my liking. Flying it is a dream.

Sometimes I think I'm doing aviation wrong, as there's this big social circle that I know nothing about. Folks are always asking if I know so-and-so, and the answer is no.

I know the folks in my EAA chapter and a couple other people, but the days of a full airport and pilots sitting around hangars shooting the bull are all but gone, at least here.

I just spent a weekend with our Scout troop, who held new elections for leadership positions and planned the upcoming year's calendar. That is my real passion, and as assistant scout master it takes up a fair amount of time, but is very rewarding. I messed around and lost the opportunity to make Eagle so I am always tracking the time our boys have to get advancement done and get the requirements finished before their 18th birthday. Both of my sons are Eagles and nothing they have done makes me any prouder. They still help out with the troop occasionally. One of our present challenges is a scout with autism, and it is wonderful to see the progress he as made in the past year and how the other boys have learned to deal with his difficulties and help him, not just tolerate him.
Scouting is a very social activity and works best like that. I am always amazed at the variety of backgrounds of adult leaders and how many fit in so many different circumstances.