a quick side note

Okay, I’m not completely pausing the Colemak attempt, but I literally cannot do my job typing at such a slow pace, or really a lot of my hobbies. So, I am going to take the advice of colemak.com, and really just practice for, like, ten minutes a day and get into it more slowly. In the meantime, a coworker of mine has allowed me to borrow a split keyboard that he no longer uses, so I get to try one of these out and see if it fixes any of the pain I’ve had in my wrists and hands! Fingers crossed, there is some success there.

the meat and potatoes

In the meantime, let’s talk about something else. Why do hobbies inevitably become jobs? It feels like there is no way to actually just have a hobby in this life. I love cooking, and I love baking bread and other savory treats. So why did I decide to soil it by trying to turn it into a business? I love getting compliments and making people happy with my food. Did I decide to start selling food, so I could selfishly swallow up more compliments? So that I can feel more confident in my abilities by desperately seeking the validation of others? I know I am a good home cook and baker. I can taste my food. My friends and family enjoy my food. I shouldn’t need strangers to give me money AND compliments to feel secure in my cooking skills.

Do we make our hobbies into jobs because we believe that "if we do something we love, we’ll never work a day in our lives?" I don’t think that is true. Rather, I think that idea should come with a HUGE asterisk; if you do something you love, you’ll never work a day in your life if your livelihood doesn’t depend on your success. In other words, I believe if you’re not actually working in the capitalistic sense of the word, work can be super fulfilling, but not if it is connected to your ability to pay your rent and buy your groceries. Even if you are wildly successful, I imagine it still sucks all the joy from your work if you have to consider whether someone is going to be willing to pay you for whatever it is you’re working on. You need a safety net so large that you can't possibly fall through the cracks if you fail.

Maybe, it is simply the idea that if you really want to push yourself, really want to find out how good you are, or how good you could be, you’ve got to make it high stakes. You’ve got to put yourself out in the world, and take advantage of the fight or flight feeling that comes with being unsure whether you’ll be able to feed yourself this week if you can’t sell that painting or all of those loaves of bread, or if you can’t get the right gigs this month. This would be the most optimistic view. I want to prove that I am good, and not only that, but that I am better than whoever you think is good.

i need help

I like to think that is part of why I personally do this to my hobbies. However, I don’t love the unnecessarily competitive, dick-measuring contest that this train of thought leads to. Obviously, I think all the reasons I’ve laid out are part of the reason people commodify their hobbies generally, and why I do it specifically. This isn’t a research paper; I am just speaking from personal experience and what I’ve seen in others I am close to. Doing this blog feels like a rejection of that idea; I’m not going to make any money on any of the writing here. I don’t even know how I would. Ads? Fuck that. Maybe one day, I’ll add a donation button to the posts or something. But there, even with that thought right there, why do I do that? Why does money always weasel its way into my mind? I suppose there is no way to avoid it in the world we live in. I would like to try, though.