14 March 2013
Hobbies are fun. They take away some of the dullness of everyday life and replace it with fun and a sense of accomplishment.
Everyone should have a hobby or two. It doesn't have to be something time-consuming, and it can even be something you do while still able to be productive at home or at work. If you knit, you can do that while catching up on Downton Abbey. If your hobby is Downton Abbey, you can watch while you clean. If your hobby is Internet Porn versions of Downton Abbey, then you can watch while typing documents at work. Typing with one hand is easy once you get the hang of it. Ignore the look your co-worker in the next cubicle is giving you, he's just jealous of your multitasking skills and dedication to Period Dramas.
Or, you can be me and tackle hobbies in the most dysfunctional way imaginable. Oh, you want details? I am more than happy to oblige, but you need to sit through some (read: a lot) background first. Hey, no one forced you to read this.
For about sixteen years of my life, I had a very steady, long-time hobby-- video games. Video games of all genres and platforms; if it had controls, I played it. It was, for the majority of my life, the largest part of my day. And if you would consider that an unhealthy hobby, I would vehemently disagree with you. On the contrary, I do not see any disadvantage video games have given me.
I learned how to use MS-DOS when I was four, the functions of A/V inputs when I was five, and electronics repair at six-- all due to video games. I learned how to function under stress from Action games, manage resources from RTS games, and read narratives from RPGs. And my vision is 20/20, so I can single-handedly dispel any myths about long-term eye damage from looking at a screen for too long.
Video games are an awesome hobby, and I wish it could have remained so for me. Unfortunately, life has a tendency of changing, and events like a full-time job, marriage, and parenthood have taken my gaming time to almost nil. I still get to play a video game every now and then, but I am forced to do so late at night, and always with the knowledge that every minute I spend playing is going to be a minute of sleep I am losing. It's kind of a buzz-kill.
So I've had to take on new hobbies that I can more efficiently integrate with my life. Most people would pick a hobby that is either related to or an extension of their previous hobby. I am not "most people" in this regard. I am, in fact, incredibly far-removed from "most people" in the most random and esoteric way imaginable.
My choices on hobbies since video gaming can be defined as "interesting" at best, and "what the hell is wrong with you?" At worst. Once I was reconciled to the fact that video games were no longer a thing for me, which followed an awkward period of time where I tried really hard to make everything fit together and an even worse period of time where I was doing nothing in my spare time, I tried mostly small, short-lived stuff. Card tricks, yo-yos, yo-yo-like objects from other parts of the world, ocarinas-- all things that I was really terrible at doing and did not have enough of an interest in to make an effort to improve.
Still looking for a hobby to call my own, I decided to get a little more ambitious. Computer programming, web design, and RC cars lasted a couple of months, but neither really took off.
"Took off".
Yeah, that was my problem. I wasn't being ambitious enough, and I needed to take it to the next level. So one day,on a whim-- like every other hobby I have ever taken up-- I decided that I wanted to learn how to fly an airplane. It made sense. I was a student in a university located only five minutes from a small airport, and my courses were becoming scarce enough that every semester would force me into a three-hour break between classes. So I flew, and it was awesome. I logged twenty hours of flight with my instructor, and I completed a solo flight-- just me and a Cessna 152. Then, seven-and-a-half years into a four-year undergraduate program, I finally graduated from my University and I was no longer right next to an airport for five days every week. This, coupled with my realization that, even if I commuted to the airport every day and got my Pilot's License, I would probably never be able to afford an aircraft of my own, led me to decide not to pursue flight training any further. One day, I may finish my training. The Terrafugia Transition may lead to more affordable options in the readable aircraft industry, and ideas like the Verticopter make it possible to skip airports altogether, and that may make aviation a viable form of everyday transportation. But then it becomes as much of a hobby as driving to work every day.
After Aviation, I started spending a lot of time in Photoshop. I don't use it for drawing, but I like retouching photos, sometimes to humorous effect. This led to an interest in photography itself, which along with Photoshop are hobbies is still do today.
In 2011, I finally found the one, perfect hobby for me. I had been playing around with the idea of owning a telescope, and unsuccessfully trying to convince my brother to split the cost with me. Around the middle of the year, I gave up and bought myself an 8-inch Dobsonian (Orion XT8). To this day, I would still recommend that to anyone as a first telescope. I was hooked pretty much from the first night, and I've gone deeper into Astronomy as a hobby since then.
But my list of hobbies does not end there. Not by a long shot.
Since discovering Astronomy, I began to trend toward hobbies that dovetail with each other. Using my interest in Photography, I started in Astrophotography-- photography of objects seen through a telescope. That is by far my favorite way to spend my downtime, and on reaching the photographic limitations of my Dobsonian, I sold it to help pay for a Celestron EdgeHD 800 mounted on a CGEM.
But the weather isn't always clear and the photos I do take need work to bring out details, so I started learning how to use a myriad of image processing software, mainly Maxim DL and Registax, while my experience in Photoshop covers post-processing of images.
I backed a 3D Printer on Kickstarter a few months ago and it should be arriving in May. Soon, 3D Printing will be added to my list of hobbies. In preparation for that, I have been learning 3D Design in SketchUp. I can now design custom attachments and adapters for my telescope, and soon I will be able print them for use.
Very recently, I also decided to get into Photomicrography, which is taking photos through a microscope. I figured it may be a good complement to Astrophotography. I am testing the waters with a very cheap microscope, and I will be moving up to a Trinocular Stereo Microscope soon.
I think that's everything. If you lost track, and even I do sometimes, the official list of current hobbies is: Astronomy, Astrophotography, Astrophotographic Processing, Image Post-Production, Photomicrography, regular old Photography, 3D Design, and 3D Printing.
If you want to count the rapidly-growing, Facebook-based Astronomy forum I founded as a separate hobby, you can add that to the list too.
So I may have slightly too many hobbies. But you know what? I love the Hell out of it. There is literally always something that I can find to do in my downtime, and I don't get bored with any of them because there are so many different, yet complementary, things I can choose to do. It's almost like one big hobby, but I don't know what it would be called. I suppose you can condense Astrophotography, Photomicrography, and their applicable software to something like "Specialized Photography", but I can't think of a term that would lump everything together.
This ended up being a lot longer than I thought it would be. And I just paused at the realization that writing for Opuss is becoming another hobby.
On Hobbies • Opuss № I