4 February 2026
I bought a sourdough starter last year because the internet told me hobbies were the cure for existential dread. Three weeks later, it died in my fridge, unloved and unfed, another casualty of my relentless pursuit of becoming a more interesting person.\n\nHere's what no one tells you about hobbies in 2026: they're not allowed to be recreational anymore. Every pastime must be optimized, photographed, and converted into personal brand equity. You can't just read books. You need a color-coordinated bookshelf, a Goodreads account with pithy reviews, and strong opinions about whether physical books are morally superior to e-readers. You can't just go for a walk. You need the right sneakers, a podcast queue, and a fitness tracker to prove the walk happened.\n\nI tried rock climbing once. The guy belaying me asked what my 'climbing goals' were. My climbing goal was to not die. This was apparently the wrong answer.\n\nWe've collectively forgotten that some activities exist purely for the joy of doing them badly. I like painting, but I'm objectively terrible at it. My watercolors look like crime scenes. My perspectives are anatomically impossible. And yet, every time I admit this, someone inevitably says: 'Have you tried taking a class? There are great YouTube tutorials. You should really develop your skills.'\n\nWhy? Why must I develop my skills? Why can't I just slap paint on paper like a toddler with a credit card and call it self-care?\n\nThe answer, of course, is capitalism. Hobbies are supposed to make you more productive, more marketable, more content for the algorithm. Rest without output is suspicious. Leisure without improvement is wasteful. God forbid you do something purely because it feels good, with no tangible result to show for it.\n\nSo here's my radical proposal: let's be aggressively mediocre at things. Let's bake ugly cakes. Let's write bad poetry. Let's learn three chords on the guitar and never progress beyond them. Let's do things purely for the pleasure of doing them, and let's stop pretending that every moment of our lives needs to be optimized, documented, and converted into proof that we're living correctly.\n\nMy sourdough starter is dead, and I've never been happier.
In Defense of Being Bad at Things • Opuss № I