Hobbies are fun. I mean, by definition, you are supposed to enjoy them. We collect them and cherish them. We take time out of our too-full lives for our hobbies. How we spend our free time can signal a lot about the caliber of person we are or plan to be. Our hobbies tell others what is important to us - what we will protect our time for - and where or what we intend to focus our minds on.
My wife spends almost all of her free time learning. A very small amount of the time, she may binge watch a tv show. She may play a little piano here and there. But for the most part, she is reading about some concept she doesn’t understand or some skill set she wants to acquire. It’s really admirable and kind of intimidating. The thing is, it really shows in her ability to quickly learn concepts and process new information. And it shows her desire to hone the skill of quickly learning and applying new concepts. This habit she has of reading and exposing herself to new ideas makes her even better at her job. She roles with the punches and connects disparate business units or concepts within the larger framework of her company better than most of her peers. It’s a really valuable skill that stems from her hobby.
Hobbies have an interesting landscape. How we judge their worth can vary widely based on our own biases and experiences. Some are commonly interpreted with a very charitable eye. For example, I tend admire people who work with their hands. In fact, I have a friend that makes spoons. He hand carves them out of wood. It’s basically whittling with the end product looking like an abstraction of a spoon. It’s maybe not the most functional spoon, but I’m in awe of it. The time and patience that he puts into carving these spoons is really something akin to meditation. The repetition. The attention to detail. The focus. It’s very cool. When he posts a picture on his instagram account, everyone likes it. They compliment it. They support his passion for spoon making. It’s nice.
My hobby is music. If I were to get on my social media and post a mostly formed snapshot (audio clip) of a song I was whittling away at, I genuinely believe that some people might become offended by it. Music has that sort of power over us. If it isn’t to our “taste”, it can be unbearable to listen to. When a sound comes on that truly bothers you, for whatever reason, you try to shut it off at all costs. Music that pleases the ear is AMAZING. Ah-mazing. Music that is even mildly displeasing is absolute dog shit. It’s infuriating. Fucking turn it off now. “Why would you do that awful thing to me, dude? I hate that band. I thought we were friends.” Artists we don’t like, we hate. HATE THEM. The voice, the tempo, the pallet of sounds. It doesn’t really matter what it is that we don’t like - we just don’t like it. And this is the thing I chose to do with my free time.
Crafting songs is a lot like building each individual puzzle piece to a puzzle with just the vaguest concept of what the over all picture should look like. And it could totally change to a new picture at any given second. You might keep some pieces from the old puzzle. You might throw the whole thing away. Music can be very mathematical, with resolution and appropriate harmonies. But song building hinges a lot more on feel or flavor. The way a chord progression sounds and feels is equally, if not more, important than its position within a key and whether or not each discord resolves in the correct way. I write songs to scratch the itch. The feeling I have inside of me that says everything is not ok. Everything is imperfect and difficult. The shitty things in life happen the same way the good things happen. Which is to say that neither happens for any reason at all. Things just happen. I can’t live my life with that attitude, so I smile and laugh and push through. Writing songs allows me to tap into that subconscious fear and insecurity and release those tensions. I hardly ever write happy songs. That’s mostly because I am a happy person. I express that particular emotion in my day to day regularly. The songwriting helps me regulate my emotions. It helps me find balance in a world that can easily unbalance me.
It is hard to share my hobby with others. Songwriters have to build a level of confidence in themselves and their craft before they can widely share their songs. The sharing usually happens incrementally and works towards performing live in a venue setting. Performing in front of strangers is the true test. If are lucky enough to move a stranger to feel the words, melody or rhythm of a song you built from scratch, then you will become addicted to that feeling. It will be the most powerful high you have ever felt. And yet, the rejection of your songs, feels personal. Rejection come with shame and anger. Defensiveness. It hurts when someone doesn’t like your music. It hurts when they aren’t moved. SO you have to find a balance between the highs and the lows. This makes sharing a very scary prospect. Add that to the way we are built to respond to music and you have a situation where a songwriter desperately wants to share their song but is too afraid and the person they want to share it with wants to GUARD THEIR EARS from the potential displeasure of hearing something that isn’t to their taste. It’s a nearly impossible situation. It’s very frustrating. I guess what I’m saying is, songwriting can be a shitty hobby to have. It might be better to carve some spoons.
rolls* with the punches