Hobbies, in Order of

Hobbies top off the mind’s pleasure meter. When the joy tank feels empty, and needs a refill, I’ve turned to many different activities. Making a list has its own simple pleasure.

Most expensive

Bikes - I’ve bought a few, but it’s the maintenance costs that add up. It helps to compare one’s most expensive hobby addiction against the more extreme. In the case of cyclists, we can always throw triathletes under the bus. But what’s the calculus when we’re being honest? Should we measure cost input minus pleasure and health outputs? On balance, I think the math works out, and I’ll happily keep spending.

Brewing beer - high spend for equipment and ingredients for low flavor output - I was not good at this hobby. This is one of those hobbies where one throws more and more money into a better setup, in pursuit of small gains. I could have spent a million dollars though, and still made mediocre beer.

Most creative

Music - I grew up in a musical family, filling both their occupational and hobby buckets. My dad would play piano and my siblings and I would run and sing along around the house. We sang in church, but music as a hobby took off once I gave up the trumpet in school band and switched to bass. I’d tried playing guitar at summer camp, but struggled to crimp my fingers into chord shapes on skinny-fretted necks. The bass fit. I played in jazz bands in high school and college, and count those as my peak musical skill achievements. Bass playing fits well into wannabe rock bands, and coming of age during the grunge and alternative rock movements made for very fun jam sessions. The band I was in played one wedding reception in rural Oklahoma, with a playlist full of Alice in Chains and Cream. Good times.

I switched to guitar and mostly gave up the bass after college. Lack of an amp and a band to play with being the reason. Playing guitar on the shared balcony space of our first apartment like a troubador felt like a perfect moment in time. Without a demanding career or children, hobbies can happily absorb your full liesure time.

I’ve kept up guitar, and could fill a rhythm guitarist spot in a 90’s/00’s cover band. In case anyone’s looking.

But as a parent, my musical enjoyment blooms with sharing the learning experience with my kids. My older is learning trumpet in his school’s jazz band, and actually practices at home, without being told! And just like my childhood, my younger is learning piano from my dad. I hope he doesn’t abandon piano like me and my siblings all did.

Most accomplished

In sports, I have some natural talent and a lot of height. It didn’t make me any good at basketball, but the long arms and legs are great for all raquet sports (except tennis, why am I not better at tennis?). In middle age, we have to be a little more selective when throwing ourselves into physically demanding activities. Will I be able to bend my stiff joints and walk to the coffee maker in the morning? This becomes the question we ask ourselves before signing up for sports.

There was a gap of many idle years between college and my early thirties, with random sojourns into indoor soccer and racquetball, but nothing consistent. Finally, after a pick-up soccer tournament that left me huffing and puffing, I had the realization that if I had any endurance, I could actually be somewhat good at this sporting thing. So I took up running. Which led to signing up for trail races around Oregon and Washington. I ran my first race in 2014, in the forest near Silver Falls State Park, east of Salem, Oregon. That was the beginning of a great relationship with trail running, only sidelined by joint issues. I still haven’t gotten back in to soccer, the nominal reason I got into running.

That first race was a success, I finished high in my age and gender group, and whetted my appetite for more. Running is a solo sport, and even though you’re racing against others, you are really competing with your self. You develop mental muscles to drive your body to increase pace when you hurt, to keep going to the top of the next hill, and to see the next whole number on your mileage counting watch. You carry that with you when you’re not running, as well. I can do hard things is a strong mantra to bring from running into the non-athletic aspects of your life.

I think I completed about 20 trail and road races between 2014 and 2019, setting personal records in half-marathon and a few longer distance courses. I completed my one and only marathon in a painful five and a half hours, on a beautiful course along a river filled with waterfalls. I never won a race, and in my forties now, I don’t expect to. But even if I never return to the athletic fitness levels achieved in my thirties, I hope I can remain a life-long runner. You know those wiry men and agile women in their eighties, moving happily down the trail with a satisfied grin? Life goals, right there.