Indulgence is Necessity: The Passions of Hobby

While many creatives turn their creativity into business, which is amazing!, the majority of creative people engage with their creativity as a hobby. Hobbiness is a wonderful, joyful way to engage with creativity. It gives us a chance to dabble in different hobbies, deepening our creative curiosity and capacity for creating. Maintaining hobby in our creative practice allows us to keep our creativity in a place of indulgence, peace, and delight - whereas there are times when creativity becomes business that it does take on a sheen of work. One of these days I will do a post contrasting the many merits of professional creativity and hobby creativity, but today is not that day friends. 

Creativity in our busy culture feels very indulgent, it feels like self care, like selfishness, like it takes away from other areas of our lives we are told hold more value. This is a myth, a narrative told by a society that wants to keep creativity, art in particular, small and undervalued, a society that wants to champion being busy and over scheduled as signs of success. Engaging in creativity can help us navigate these narratives of work and busy while reinforcing us against burnout and drudgery. 

Indulgence is not a dirty word! Especially in relation to creativity. If we do nothing for pleasure in our day our day is wasted. If we do nothing for fun, we have stifled our inner child. If we do nothing to fill our well up, we will continue to run on empty and burnout. It is necessary to indulge ourselves in joyful pleasure, in innocent play, in replenishment and growth through creative pursuits. It is an indulgence because it is not a societal necessity for success, but it is a necessity for the survival of our spirit. I use the word indulge to evoke a sense of relish, appreciation, delight. Being creative, making time for our hobby, our art, our interest, is not another thing to check off our to do list; it is a privileged right we get to enjoy.   

In defense of the hobby, creativity comes in as many forms and variations as there are creatives in the world, that is to say people. The hobby keeps creativity accessible to the masses, open to exploration, and friendly. It invites us to dabble and not care whether we are ‘good’ at it or not, the only criteria is that we enjoy the act of doing. Maintaining a hobby is rewarding in so many ways; one such benefit, I find, is that it gives us a place to get excited again, a place that holds us in its space with no expectation of anything, time or energy in particular. It is a thing that holds our passion, and I love the idea that the truest passion a human can have is creativity, whatever form it may take.

This necessity humans have to create, I believe, is rooted in our deep desire for connection and understanding and hope. Creativity is a shared experience, it is a necessary outlet, a place of peace, and a way to engage with the world, even when everything shuts down around you as we all experienced during the 202 lock downs. It was creativity - the free online concerts, the movie viewing, the tv show bingeing, the online classes, baking of bread, and leaning back into discovering hobbies that kept us all sane and gave us back the joy of doing with our own hands for our own joy.