I think hobbies and interests are important. They make life interesting, but also make us interesting.
What sorts of things do you like to do in your spare time? Have you ever considered making such an interest into a full-time job? Do you have too many interests (like me), or maybe just a handful?
(Here we go again folks. You have to endure me enthusing about music again.)
I'm a major music nerd.
- I have more than 10,000 tracks in my collection... Not just a big honking batch of music I chunked into a folder, but a lot of albums I have carefully curated. I have even edited some, like if there was a lot of talking (concert albums) that was nice to listen to once but I didn't want to hear every flipping time I listened to that album, or if there are so many repeating repeats at the end (black choir) that it gets ridiculous.
- I have more than 2,000 tracks from old records. You can play a record or cassette, record the audio in computer, chop it into tracks and save as individual songs for your phone.
- I like all styles. Like... ALL styles. All my music (aside from a bit of classical) is Christian, but it's all over the map. Bluegrass gospel, southern gospel, black choir, rap, hiphop, reggae, Jamaican (which IS different from reggae!) heavy metal, 80's rock, it's all somewhere in there. I can guarantee I will be able to find some music in my collection that you can't stand.
- I can make soundtracks for songs I want to sing at church. This comes in very handy. So far I've made soundtracks in a few different styles. Techno was the easiest. Country was for some reason the hardest. All it takes is a MIDI keyboard connected to the computer and a few virtual instruments loaded in the computer to "play."
I cook some. I like to bake sourdough bread and I cook and drink a gallon of boiled custard every week. I can also make chocolate chip cookies that are like crack. You can't stop eating them. (The secret is oat flour in the mix - just throw some oats in a blender. Gives it the texture people love. I might possibly have seen a certain teen girl go past with four of them at a church dinner, and they are not small cookies.)
I'm a computer nerd. I'm using a Linux system to type this forum post. I can probably diagnose your computer problem and maybe even fix it. I can at least tell you if you should just chunk it and get a new one, or if it is worth saving.
Have I ever considered making money at any of these? Uh... yeah, no. All of them would get ALL the fun sucked right out if I tried to make them into businesses. I mean if I lived in a big city I might get away with starting a recording studio, but then I'd have to listen to music I didn't necessarily want to listen to AND I'd have to live in a big city. And doing computer stuff is easy, and anybody who can read can cook, so yeah. I'm keeping these as hobbies I do when I want and the way I want.