On Hobbies

We have both invested thousands of hours into activities with no obvious utility. Music, sport, photography, travel, poetry, writing an entire unpublished novel… starting a podcast. Is this all just a hubristic waste of time, a shallow self-indulgence, or is there some value to these activities that goes beyond the fact that we enjoy them? There is satisfaction in mastering a skill, there is value in expanding your comfort zone, and there’s a human drive towards capturing and communicating a subjective experience. But the ancients suggest that there is more going on here, that our hobbies could be essential to being able to live a good life. Aristotle tells us that virtue lies between two vices - recklessness on one side, and cowardice on the other. To be virtuous is to conquer both of these, and to hold this middle course when dealing with difficult situations and the extremes of life. The challenge for modern man is that the classical virtues can only be forged through experience. You can’t learn them from a book, you have to live them, to actually face difficulties and extremes. But how can we do this when we work 9-6 writing emails in an artificially-lit office and then go home to watch Netflix? The answer, we argue, lies in our hobbies. We also talk at some length about West African religiosity, and how if you want a feel for Classical religion it’s African animism you need to study or experience.