The Importance of Quiet Hobbies!

Blaike Gillshaw

26th July, 2024

There's a lot of pressure in the world right now to monetize our passions and make things that are likely to be commericaly successful rather than the things we really want to make. This can make having hobbies feel stressful especially if your income or your studies are tied to the things that should be a source of relaxation and enjoyment. So, it's important to have what i like to call 'Quiet Hobbies'.

Quiet hobbies are essentially just hobbies that have no purpose other than being nice to do in your free time. AKA actual hobbies! You don't advertise them on social media, you don't sell the outcomes and you don't even have to talk about them to your friends if you don't want to. You just do the thing and have a nice time doing it.

I used to love drawing because i could empty my brain and be completely honest about how i was feeling and who i was thinking about and what had been hurting me or causing me stress but then drawing became a job and posting drawings online and selling prints became something that felt more and more important. That meant that the level of vunderability i was able to represent was limited or more, i had to draw twice as much to make up for all the stories i didn't want to share online to still reach the level of content i needed to post in order to maintain an audience. That's not to say that i had to do those things, just that i chose to. That hobby isn't quiet anymore, it's broadcast.

I still like drawing and i do it frequently but as you can probably guess, it doesn't exactly serve the same purpose to me now as it used to. It's not stress free, it's not private and it's not really a kind of meditation anymore and that means i needed to find something else that could be those things. Over my life this has looked like a few different things - playing the guitar, making up silly jingles and most recently - running. I have absoloutley no interest in becoming a competitive runner or being the fastest in my county. I don't want to have sponsorships or find a career as an athletic influencer online. I just want to run. Like Forrest Gump. I just want to run until i don't want to run and then i want to go home and watch cartoons in my pyjamas whilst i eat a snack. Running is a quiet hobby, it's not performing for anyone. And that is so good for your brain!

We're expected to be switched on almost all of the time and when our hobbies demand as much from us as our jobs do then it's understandable why we all get burned out and end up rotting in bed instead of reaching for extra curriculars like we used to growing up. So, this is your chance to double check if your hobbies are still hobbies or if you're actually working three part time jobs on top of your full time job and to re-evaluate when you are performing and when you have the chance to enjoy soemthing quietly and for yourself.