THE GOLDEN AGE OF HOBBIES

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V28 2025 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 28, Number 12, , Article 23

This Washington Post article takes a look at the state of hobbies today. Here's an excerpt - see the complete article online. -Editor

We are supposed to be living in the golden age of hobbies. Great thinkers of the 20th century believed that innovations in technology would make work so efficient that leisure would eclipse labor. In 1930, economist John Maynard Keynes predicted 15-hour workweeks by 2030. This would leave people the opportunity to "cultivate into a fuller perfection, the art of life itself."

This would include hobbies, activities that Benjamin Hunnicutt, an emeritus professor of Leisure Studies at the University of Iowa, calls "pursuits that are their own reward." The opportunity to pursue joyful and meaningful activities was once "sort of the definition of human progress," Hunnicutt said.

The odds are stacked against hobbies. "Work has been supercharged with meaning and purpose and identity, a charge that it never had, at least for the majority of people," Hunnicutt said. The seamlessness of streaming and the narcotic effects of scrolling make every other activity feel effortful. To pay the bills, huge swaths of Americans take on "side hustles" during hours that earlier generations might have spent building model trains or singing in a choir.

These cultural conditions mean that hobbies can feel like a kind of class signifier for those who have the time and resources to cultivate them — Instagram influencers do Pilates and pottery, while the rest of us try to decide if meal prep counts as personal enrichment. For many, hobbies can seem like another chore, an opportunity to fail at well-roundedness.

All of this obscures the delight and exhilaration of having hobbies. "Hobbies are something that you invest your time and energy into without that expectation of financial return," said Jasmine Cho, author of the 2024 book "Get A Hobby." Cho defines "hobby" expansively: "any sort of activity that grounds you in joy, can help you cope with sorrow, and can help you escape from life's burdens." (Cho's hobbies include journaling, doodling, boxing, taekwondo, Legos, Gundam models and puzzles.) "It's just a practice of flow and getting lost, or even hyper-focused," she said. "That, in and of itself, is the reward."

I notice that there's no mention of "collecting" in this description of hobbies. But collecting is alive and well, in numismatics and elsewhere. And while I would agree that a hobby should have no "expectation of financial return," for me the key word is "expectation". I've always thought that any sufficiently advanced collector is indistinguishable from a dealer or investor. We just hold onto things longer in general. But to advance in collecting often entails ramping up purchases and the inevitable selling to offload duplicates and free up funds for new collection additions. Some become serial collectors, building up and selling one collection after another, always moving on to new horizons.

So I disagree with the following statement in the article. -Editor

And if you monetize your hobby, it's not a hobby anymore. "Once it flips into something that generates income, it becomes work," she said.

To supercharge my collecting of numismatic literature, I put out my shingle as a dealer, eventually buying thousands of books individually or in bulk by purchasing entire libraries. Sure it was work, but it was also a joy. Opening each letter, email or box was a delight of anticipation - the potential chance to add something new to my library, or at least find something to sell at a small profit, generating some money to pay for the next acquisition. It was a delightful daily diversion from the routines of (other) work and duties. My life is richer for it in so many ways - through this hobby I've learned far, far more about history, economics, art, and money than I ever got from schooling or reading alone, and the wide range of people I've gotten to meet and know is another treasure I hold dear. All thanks to a hobby. -Editor