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"Here’s how you can read 6 books during the weekend”, yeah, I’ve came across tons of videos like that, even today, some creator popped up on some “how to turn your bead-making hobby into passive income” type of thing. And I know I am not the only one, you too have seen one or two of such videos. But the real question here is, can one come out victorious in this battle of weaponised hobbies? I mean, literally survive not turning their hobby into some sort of cash machine.
We live in a cultural moment where
leisure has been weaponised into productivity. If you get a camera, you’re told
to also open a photo studio. If you enjoy baking, your friends and loved ones
will be on your neck urging you to open a micro-bakery by your street corner
every weekend because “there’s a lot of money to be made”, they said. Even if
you don’t monetize your hobby, there’s a sort of unwritten rule that you must
document it and post it, and the funny thing about this, is that it is hidden
behind some “you’re making memories”. Yes Carol, “my memories”, but why should
I share my memories with strangers on the internet?
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| Image by Freepik |
Once our sanctuaries, have now become sweatshops. By applying such metrics of the corporate world (consistency, monetisation etc.) we have successfully annihilated the most important element of a leisure pursuit (genuine play). So, here’s the thing, for anyone suffering from chronic burnout, the greatest act of rebellion is to find something you love and intentionally stay terrible at it. For me that’s drawing. I remember when I first drew my anime character back in high school, everything was fine—the problem began when in turned my 20s when I saw some video talking on how to monetize your drawings and stuffs like that. Honestly, I started drawing on a daily...it was no longer a matter of “let me rest my mind of school for a bit”. And I remember how drawing started feeling like a job instead of an act I turn to when I am feeling lonely.
Does the word amateur ring a bell?
Yeah, it does, I know, but do most of us know where it originated and it’s
meaning? I doubt. Historically, the word amateur didn’t mean “unprofessional”
or “bad”, as the now culture has painted it. It comes from the Latin word amator,
which means “lover”. So, this means that an amateur is simply a person who does
an activity purely out of love for it—without any financial expectation or need
for public validation.
Now, here is where it all goes bad.
The modern culture has successfully eradicated the amateur. We suffer from the
collective delusion that is skill is not monitored or monetised, it is a waste
time...yeah, “knitting yourself is a waste, what will you do with all these
cardigans Carol?”.
This mindset creates an immense
psychological burden to those who are on the receiving end of the stick, when
their worth is tied to output and income. Let me tell you this, a hobby that
requires you to perfect it is a second job—now repeat after me, a hobby...
When you engage in an activity
where you have zero financial expectations and expectations to be good,
something shifts internally. That perfectionism that thrived on the fear of
failure, disappears entirely because your explicit goal is to mess around, with
that failure becomes impossible. Take this, true rest is not passive
consumption, it is an active state of flow where your mind is fully engaged but
entirely free from judgement, and you cannot enter that flow if you are
constantly worrying about your metrics. YOU DO NOT EXIST TO BE OPTIMISED.
To reclaim this unmeasured fun, you
have to establish strict boundaries around your free time. Whichever leisure
activity you do, it should have a commitment to a zero-posting rule, because
the moment you share it for external validation, you invite the shadow of
performance back into the room.
Do it badly. Do it poorly. Do it
clumsy. But do it with a smile on your face, knowing that your joy cannot be
bought sold, measured or monetized.