Philosophy of Hobbies

Hobbies demand patience, repetition and attention to form. Qualities increasingly rare in our digital, disembodied age. Where quantity matters more than the quality of that which is produced.

Valuing craftsmanship over production resists alienation by re-integrating cognition with action (Greek: tékhnē). In Aristotelian terms, it is a form of hexis. A cultivated disposition toward good work, ordered beauty and skillful presence in the world.

When do we play then?

Friedrich Schiller would call craftsmanship as an element of Formtrieb, a sense of a form drive, working towards rationality and rules. This is best exemplified in hobbies that demand patience and skill. This element is incomplete by itself which is why it needs the second element to be complete.

This being Sachtrieb or the sense drive. Which is working in the opposite direction of the form drive towards the aesthetic and chaotic. This can best be seen in the appreciation (not passive consumption) of art. Once we engage in pure sensual experience, we are part taking in the sense drive.

Schiller believed those two to be the two parts of the same coin. He defined us as needing both in order to achieve what he called Spieltrieb or the play drive. We talked about play from Huizinga’s point of view in the last post. However Schiller believed we need both form and senses in order to get a true play.

A play drive is more than present inside of most hobbies we undertake. Somewhere the balance is more towards the one than the other. For example book reading could engage our sense driving more, however we can balance it out by putting in taking notes on what we read. Where reason is introduced.

Other more physical hobbies are also on the sense drive side. Which is why once we integrate a sense of form inside those hobbies, they balance out and enter the realm of play. This does no sacrifice the hobby, it enhances it. Since it balances it well.

Conclusion

In conclusion hobbies involve skill, precision even in the most minor of examples we can see an element where hobbies take form. This allows aesthetic and moral value to form as we undertake hobbies. Craftsmanship is a type of manual intelligence where we are actively engaged with that which we undertake. A skill that needs to be saved in this age.

Lastly, hobbies enhance embodiment in their execution as we enter the flow state which is only possible once we let a balance of both sense and form drives to co-operate. Thus we enter into a mode of play drive.

The freedom of not being the best

In the previous chapter I introduced craftsmanship as a key aspect of hobbies. In this post I would like to discuss a complementary aspect of undertaking hobbies. Namely the concept of amateurism. How does this aspect differentiate hobbies from mere passive consumption? Along side its practical benefits of paying attention.

Historical roots

With the rise of professionalism we have forgotten an important aspect of where amateurism comes from. It originates from Latin, amator meaning lover, which signifies engagement motivated by love rather than utility. Still to this day, the French word for love is „amour“ keeping some of the Latin origins, from French amateur "one who loves, lover" (16c., restored from Old French ameour). In 1784, it meant: "one who has a taste for some art, study, or pursuit, but does not practice it"

An amateur was never meant to be a professional at what they are doing. Difference between the two, is that one is motivated by a career and, ultimately money. In a society that deifies professionalism over everything, the amateur is paradoxically more autonomous.

They are not beholden to market pressures or institutional gate-keeping. While somebody like me who pursued philosophy professionally I can’t say the same. Once we enter the gates of academia we are beholden to pursue this activity even the parts we love the least.

Amateur is a a trait you do not want to write on your resume to avoid the stigma alongside it. The stares of the directors once they see a ‘:)’ at the end of your emails. ‘Such amateurism’. We forgot that amateur is a person who loves what they are doing. Yet love wasn’t enough. It had to produce value. You absolutely want to be an amateur hobbyist on the other hand.

Authenticity of not being the best

Philosophically, amateurism aligns with the existentialist ideal of authenticity. Heidegger calls this Eigentlichkeit. It is a return to one’s own most capacity to care Sorge, to dwell meaningfully in the world. We are no longer pressured by capitalism to constantly worry about meeting deadlines and make it perfect.

It doesn’t have to be perfect. It has to express one’s own personality in the utmost way. Amateurism is the assertion of value outside technocracy. Yet it is also a gesture of humility, where one remains a student, not a master of the craft.

Liminality of amateurism

In the last post I discussed how hobbies are meant to be skillfully pursued not merely as passive consumption. That is not to say they are meant to be up to professional standards. There is a space in between being terrible and being the best. Amateurism falls somewhere between.

There is a certain freedom where the hobby allows us to ascend the messy and thoughtless work, yet still keeping the heart of the craft. The truth of a hobby lies exactly in its propensity towards just the right amount of skill. The majority of professional work out there, goes the extra mile to censor their work, to commodify it and make it palatable to market demands.

Hobbies are resistant to that, so they do not have the constraints of professionalism. However that doesn’t make it an excuse for being terrible or bad at a hobby. In the professional world it is easy to equate the two. Since everything non-professional is seen as amateur.

However we are not in the professional world. We have moved past it, and entered the circle of a hobby. Here amateurism is the love of the craft. Listening to the craft. So we are moving alongside the craft to make something truly spectacular.

Conclusion

Amateurism is a love of the craft. It is a sort of mode of being and authenticity. We put no barriers between us and our work. They differ from professionalism in that they offer freedom to failure, to not be perfect.

Ultimately amateurism isn’t an excuse for being bad or terrible at what we endeavor. It is a calling to listen to what the craft needs. We balance crafstmanship with our own desires and dance off of each other. That is the true majesty and beauty of being an amateur of a hobby.

Choosing what the world doesn’t ask of you

In the previous chapter I introduced amateurism as a key aspect of hobbies. In this post I would like to propose an aspect of autonomy that defines hobbies. Namely the concept of amateurism. How does this aspect differentiate hobbies from mere passive consumption? Along side its practical benefits of simply paying attention.

In between leisure and amateurism

Previously discussed serious leisure and amateurism have been only made possible by autonomy. Meaning if a hobbyist is able to pursue serious leisure and be an amateur they necessarily have agency in how they pursue a specific hobby. This might seem obvious at first, however it has implications on how a hobby is pursued. Which will be more evident later on.

The hobbyist enacts autonomy by choosing their pursuits freely. Meaning it is outside of social or economic coercion. This defines their scope in how a hobby is manifested. For which we will need Kant’s notion of autonomy.

Kantian ethics identifies autonomy as the foundation of moral person-hood. Choosing according to reason, not heteronomous influence. Meaning one cannot be ruled or governed while participating in this activity. Typically we are governed on our jobs, by our employers or managers. If they are not present, than we are governed by market forces and economic coercion to pursue those specific decisions.

Hobbies are directed by our own volitional choices. They allow us to direct the path the craft goes. Which neatly connects itself to a previous point on autotelic nature of hobbies. This also has a prerequisite of autonomy. For we are only able to a hobby autonomously once it is intrinsically motivated.

Once it is action as its own reward we are only then able to completely immerse ourselves into that act. Hobbies become a flow state, we are able to do work without being able to stop. It is a complete resistance to capitalist work dynamic. We are morally self-directed with purpose given solely by us and us alone.

Self as agent

This implies that practicing a hobby affirms the self as agent, not as consumer or cog. It goes beyond those categories. Under the workplace we are just replaceable cogs in the machine. One employee can be replaced with another. We are not autonomous, we keep the machine spinning. Under consumerism we are passive and merely endure what is given onto us. We are not autonomous due to the very act of consumption.

So a hobby is reclaiming of bios, ancient Greek conception of a life, from zoē a more animalistic conception of life from ancient Greece. In other words we reclaim the meaningful life from mere survival. Capitalist work dynamic thought us only as animals whose sole purpose was survival. Hobbies break this dynamic and add meaning into a life that goes beyond mere animal.

Autonomy here is presented not as isolation, but self-determination in a shared cultural meaning. It is not isolated for ourselves only, as many western traditions might conceive of it. In later post of this series I will be discussing the importance of community and belonging that hobbies open up. Not only am I capable of being free. We are capable of being free.

Inside of that we are given an opportunity to discover ourselves. We reject forces that aren’t intrinsic to our nature. Autonomy is an antidote to algorithmic control. Thus this opens up the doors for identity exploration and at its peak identity formation. A topic too large to get into this post however will be discussed in a later post.

Hobbies are thus micro-practices of freedom. They resist biopolitcal control. Which will be an aspect discussed in a later post. Autonomy is an undeniably key aspect of hobbies that opens up the doors to other important and not so self-evident aspects of hobbies that can get overlooked if not for critical examination.

Conclusion

In retrospect, autonomy inside of hobbies may seem as self-evident. However this doesn’t mean we can’t analyze it. Examination of autonomy has opened up the doors for autotelic nature of hobbies, for identity formation and even community and belonging.

We are choosing what the world doesn’t ask of us once we enter into the circle of a hobby. Which places autonomy at the very core of what makes a hobby. So a reflection was a key that allowed us to recognise the hidden meaning it brings into our life.

Wasting time on purpose is time that builds a life

Early on in this hobby series I introduced concept of serious leisure as a key aspect of hobbies. In this post I would like to work from there. Namely the concept of qualitative time. How does this aspect differentiate hobbies from mere passive consumption? Is that time wasted?

No it’s not wasted time

Building upon everything we have already disccused I would like to propose a concept that goes hand in hand with serious leisure. That being the concept of time itself. While leisure is more concerned with free time, when we are not working, it is centered upon a state of being. This time let’s center upon time itself.

We are so used to thinking of time in terms of chronos which means measurable time. It refers to sequential events, quantitative time that our clocks display. This outlook to time has become prevalent in our time perception. It is the one that benefits the professional life the most.

However ancient Greece had another word for time that our modern world simply lost. That being kairos or qualitative time. In simple terms it denotes the opportune or right moment. This is a critical juncture where action is most effective or meaningful.

Hobbies require us to think in terms of kairos because that’s where our actions matter the most. Chronos is a series of events that unfold without any purpose. Think of a story, what makes its plot? It isn’t merely a chain of events that happen one from another. That makes a fabula. It is just looking at the raw sequence of events in a chronological order. It looks at what happened. This by itself cannot be the story.

We need syuzhet. The structured presentation of those events in the narrative. We ask how it’s told. We manipulate time to emphasize meaning, choosing when and how to reveal events for narrative effect. This goes for how to do your hobbies. In a way.

Time unfolds across slow, attentive repetition, forming rhythms of becoming. Heidegger calls this „authentic temporality“. In chronos we merely spent time, as if it were a resource. In kairos we inhabit the time itself.

Temporal depth, not speed

As such we escape the measure of time, which happens during the flow state. We are immediately transported into kairos time. It neatly circles everything we discussed, flow state cannot exist in chronos as we lose track or perception of quantitative time while in the state. We enter qualitative time, the actions have a purpose and meaning.

This adds rhythm to our work. That is why hobbies defie the capitalist acceleration of life. We reorient ourselves towards sabbathic time. Where the end is presence, not production nor consumption. It allows us to embody ourselves fully in the moment.

This is also a form of memory-work, we are layering time into experience and identity. Hobbies for us are a method for how we write ourselves into time without being consumed by it.

As such time becomes a syuzhet, that helps us embody a story of our own personal narrative. Flow cannot exist without us transcending the quantitative time. As such a leisure time itself still cannot be right for the hobbies. We can be inside of leisure time, yet still in chronos. However once we enter into a serious leisure we automatically enter kairos time. Those two are connected. What is more connected is flow with kairos.

Conclusion

Today I went full circle back at the begging with time, and proved how everything we have talked about is only achieved once we enter the realm of kairos. We rethink the perception of time. Our actions start mattering in the moment.

This allows us to tell a narrative and a story with our hobby. A story of ourselves and our craft. Through which we get to form our identity and ourselves as a whole. This not only goes against work time and consumption it goes further. We enter into serious leisure time and are allowed to not worry about time.

How hobbies shape who we are

Early on in this philosophy of hobbies I introduced the concept of forming identities as a key aspect of hobbies. In this post I would like to work from there. Namely explaining in detail the theory behind this. What is a self, and can it be formed? Is identity a given, a task or a fiction?

Hobbies and identity formation

During this series we established that hobbies are an autotelic activity that has to be autonomous. Connecting those things we can synthesize autonomy, praxis and temporal investment. In between the intersection lies what we can call identity formation. This post aims to bring everything together and form a thesis on how identity arises from other elements of a hobby.

Having already established the fact hobbies involve craftsmanship we can work from there and find that hobbies involve practical execution. This works with our drive to feel connected to what we are working. Hobbies remove the alienation we find inside our workplaces and allows us to feel with what we are working on. The self is not a static substance, it is a dynamic activity. We are performing, curating and constructing it. That is why hobbies instantiate this performativity, where repetition and intentionality forge a style of being.

The self then forms identity through reflexive engagement. We are allowed to take actions with self-awareness and interpretive depth. Inside of a circle of a hobby we are not bound by the economic interests, that provide a line of difference between us and the thing we are working on. Hobbies in this light are self-reflexive acts.

Because identity formation involves a tension between self-chosen paths and imposed scripts. Inside of the workforce we are being imposed upon by upper management and our bosses. We do not own a space to discover ourselves through our work. Hobbies bypass this limitation. This is why philosophical inquiry into hobbies must interrogate whether they are authentic expressions or compensatory fantasies.

The self in a healthy practice of a hobby that involves a balance between the elements we have discussed so far seems to allow us to embody situatedness. This is because they allow hobbies to ground our identity with the body and the material world. This Resist’s Cartesian abstraction. The self is no longer just cogito, but praxis. We are engaged, felt and situated.

We are alienated and fragmented

This cannot be achieved inside of the capitalist workplace, we are constantly being abstracted, instrumentalised, as such we think of ourselves abstractly and we start to lack narrative self-coherence. This manifests in the self’s search for narrative coherence across time. Often times the symptom of a lost identity manifests in passive consumption as the self cannot manifest. So we equate ourselves with what we consume instead of what we create. Because that which we create has already been alienated.

The consequence, is fragmentation, in late modernity, the subjects become disintegrated. We no longer have a pillar to climb on top to have a sense of self re-integration. We are swimming in the ocean of identities, micro-worlds without agency or a sense of coherent self.

Hobbies provide a temporal scaffolding, they resist this alienation. As such ritualized activities inscribe meaning into the flux of experience, enabling existential continuity. We are overcoming the alienation from the work we have been conditioned to do. No longer do we form self relation upon the consumption. As such narrative coherence is restored.

I want to avoid psychological accounts, and enter a more philosophical stance. That sees identity as an ethical undertaking. Hobbies become modes of ethical formation. They allow us to ask „How I ought to live, and who ought I become?“ This allows us to leave the boxes we have been assigned into.

This liberates us, because identity is not monolithic. As much as this benefits those in power who want us to be efficient. We are being of multiplicity. We are a whole of being, not merely what instrumental logic of capitalism reduces us into. As such hobbies allow exploration of multiple selves, expanding subjectivity rather than fixing it. This multiplicity challenges the ideal of a unified, essential, specialised self.

Hobbies as being

Foucault talked about a concept of technologies of the self. They are understood as voluntary practices through which individuals shape their conduct, aesthetics and well being. This concept is closely aligned with what we defined as a hobby. As such they become cultivated arts of existence. They are non-institutional modes of subject-formation that resist any biopolitical normalization by enabling self-stylization outside of disciplinary regimes of the capitalist workplace.

As mentioned above, we are alienated from the work which we do, and are asked to appease market interests instead of ourselves. We can easily understand how this relates to hobbies as a form of resistance. Their autotelic nature, inherently prevents them from being institutionalized. There is no benefit to having states, institutions, workplaces to encourage hobbies. Therefore once we form our subjectivity without the restraint placed upon us by institutions such as schools or workplaces, we can embody our identity.

This then means we are no longer being observed by the panoptic gaze of institutions, this helps us cultivate the art of just existing. In Sartrean terms, hobbies would be „projects of being“. They are choices through which the self posits its essence. They offer narrative coherence in fragmented modernity, ground identity in action rather than abstract ideology. Thus they are not an escapist fantasy, rather ethical self-creation.

Conclusion.

In conclusion, this post was hard to make. It involved a lot of abstract thinking, which just comes with the territory. It can take time to fully understand and internalize what I have just said. I highly suggest to look into concepts of alienation in the workplace, and my other posts. As well as thinkers mentioned. This would help enrich your understanding of what I meant with identity formation inside of hobbies.

This may not be so obvious, which is why I undertook this study to uncover what nobody wants to tell us. There is no significant benefit to being told the nature of the hobbies nor how to fully practice them. Which is why you should check out my series, if you haven’t.

Hobbies at their peak allows us a full aestheticization of life. By this I mean, they allow us to be embodied into experience. Rather than fragmented entities. They expand our subjectivity instead of limiting it. As such we enter the Greek concept of bios theoretikos, life lived as a work of art. Not an escape, but stylized resistance. A thoughtful, contemplative life. A life that expresses rather than conforms.

Hands remember what the mind forgets

In the previous I established that hobbies play a key role in identity formation. In this post I will work from there and explain the role of embodiment inside of hobbies from a phenomenological perspective. How craftsmanship allows us to activate praxis and integrate us with our whole being.

Embodiment of a hobby

Hobbies like most crafts are often embodied. This tends to manifest itself through music, dance, sport or any other crafts. Hobbies activate praxis over theoria. These are once again ancient greek concepts.

Praxis is the act of doing something. The actions we take. While theoria is the contemplative, the thoughtful. It is important to note that both are needed in order to establish a hobby. However the focus of this post is on praxis.

Aristotle distinguishes praxis (action with intrinsic value) from poiesis (productive action). Praxis is action done for its own sake, it is ethically and politically oriented inside of Aristotle’s philosophy. This means it is aimed at living well, which is also called eudaimonia. A state of flourishing and beatitudo or grace. The contrast was poiesis which is where we get the word for poetry. Poiesis is oriented towards production for the sake beyond itself. This is usually crafting and making which means it belongs to techne.

While many hobbies involve craftsmanship, one can easily assume that they belong to the sphere of techne, instead of poiesis. This however ignores the dialectic hobbies are faced with. Just as hobbies are interplays of praxis and theoria they are between poiesis and praxis.

Poiesis is creating something external, e.g. a pot, a melody a sculpture. The key distinction is that they are not pursued primarily for the product, but for the intrinsic joy, self-realization, or flourishing they bring. Thus they enter the realm of praxis.

Craftsmanship in hobbies is redeemed from mere utility. They are no longer chained to the object they made. They aim to further the cultivation of skill, attention and self-hood. This transforms poiesis into a vehicle of praxis.

Hobbies are often embodied—music, dance, sport, craft. They activate praxis over theoria, reintegrating bodily skill with conscious intention. Aristotle distinguishes praxis (action with intrinsic value) from poiesis (productive action).

Phenomenological perspective

Which leads us into the embodiment from a phenomenological perspective. Having established hobbies as praxis, they become existentially revealing. Marleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of embodiment shows how the body is not an object. It is the medium of perception and meaning.

Inside of hobbies, we reclaim our incarnate being. We are in the act of a lived body, that is not a tool. We do not detach ourselves as intellects, we become the embodied agents. We discover our being through gesture, rhythm, resistance and flow.

This embodied praxis discloses our finitude through the limits of skill and fatigue. Our dexterity becomes our mastery and finesse. Our vulnerability is shown through failure and risk. Our very power shows through transformation of self and the world.

Hobbies are thus phenomenological laboratories where the subject experiences its own being-in-the-world. The bodily, the temporal and intentional. Outside of the instrumental logic of work or production.

Poietic elements of craftsmanship in this way serve a deeper existential function. They materialize our very presence. They anchor our subjectivity and they affirm our being as expressive, situated and finite.

Conclusion

Lastly, hobbies offer us a sense of unity between contemplative parts of our existence and the very carnal embodiment. Through Aristotle’s praxis we enter the realm of the action for its own sake. Be it dance, or a melody. We engage with our very body in these acts themselves. Yet some embody more of one or the other.

It is a key that embodiment relates to the flow state established at the start of this series. It is in the act we fully embrace and embody the act of the hobby that we forget for time. We enter kairos time. This is where the flow state activates.

The very nature of praxis allows us to enter the magic circle of play, where we are ourselves embodiment of the act we are performing. We are anchored inside of this realm. Hobbies are thus a holistic praxis. They integrate physical action with intrinsic being. Thus the hands remember what the mind sometimes forgets. The two work hand in hand no pun intended.

Because it’s worthless and that’s beautiful

In the last post I established embodiment as a key aspect of hobbies. This post will explain further on why hobbies are done for their own sake. They are worthless, other than being done for their own sake. This makes them inherently resistant to instrumentation. This is the reason they bring us joy.

Circle of freedom and dignity

Once we enter the circle of hobbies. We no longer operate within the confines of instrumental logic of capitalism. Because then we start playing rather than feeling like we are doing any work. It is kairos time that brings us the joy and we enter the flow state. We are amateurs and love our craft over any other external rewards. Because what would be the point to get any reward for the craft of our hobby? Wasn’t the hobby itself the reward?

Perhaps the most radical function of the hobby is its resistance to Zweckrationalität (Weber). It is the instrumental rationality that arose in modernity. For those observant among my audience could have already noticed, my use of ancient greek concepts. This is due to them not being bound up in the modern instrumentalisation. Various modern thinkers like wise discuss modernity’s obsession with production.

However I needed to use those concepts in order to explain the only outlier to this instrumentalist logic. Being the hobby itself. As they dwell in the domain of value, not utility. They defy Taylorist efficiency, GPD metrics, and algorithmic optimization. For there never was any need for hobbies inside of capitalism.

Yet it is important to note, that at least modern conception of hobbies arose from the industrial revolution. So our conception of hobbies has been always through the lenses of capitalism, never free from its gaze. This is why my philosophy of hobbies must detach from the ideological glasses of capitalism and observe the hobby through the lens of the Greeks.

Liberation of desire

This is where critical theorists such as Mark Fisher come to play. Likely he would see hobbies as pockets of libidinal disinvestment from capitalism realism. In his magnum opus Capitalism Realism as well as in later works like Ghosts of My Life he laments the colonization of desire and the loss of lived time(could be connected to serious leisure even) to the circuits of production and consumption. Hobbies, insofar as they remain according to my original definition meaning they are autotelic, resist this commodification and instrumentation.

Thus they function as temporal and affective disruptions of capitalism realism. In his lectures and k-punk blog posts, Fisher critiques how neoliberalism strips life of meaningful purpose beyond work and consumption. This means a hobby, pursued for its own sake, with an autotelic, ludic engagement enacts what he’d call a counter-temporal practice. A reclaiming of time from the depressive hedonia of capitalist culture.

This is where most critiques of my original definition claim. Most would argue for it being overly rigid or limiting the idea of ‘monetization’ of hobbies. This is where it is important to be cautious. For once you instrumentalize the work you do, you no longer partake in the serious leisure, kairos time ends. The autotelic purpose is lost, you are no longer participating in the dialectic of praxis and poiesis. You enter chronos time, and are bound by the capitalist production logic. The hobby is no longer yours.

This means, once the hobby is fully subsumed into consumerist identity (e.g., „the vinyl collector“ or „the home barista“), noting how late stage capitalism excels at capturing resistance and repacking it is a lifestyle. This is why a strong definition was made for hobbyism, as it needs to involve a degree of opacity, ‘uselessness’ as a praxis of non-coincidence with capitalist time.

The magic of circle of play ends once our desire gets colonized. It is no longer our own, but channeled by the market forces outside of us. This is why Fisher is critical for warning us of dangers of colonizing our identities. We get bound up in the measurable, the efficiency, the work is not done for its own sake. It is done for numbers, for profit and for gain.

To engage in a hobby is to carve out a zone of autonomy, authenticity, and contemplation. It is a quiet rebellion against the total mobilization of time and life. In a world where everything is monetized, hobbies say: „this is mine, and it is enough“.

Conclusion

Lastly, in a world ever more bound by Zweckrationalität it becomes more the challenge to accept that which is not instrumental. Do not ‘waste your time’ doing X. Is the common sentiment plaguing the modern landscapes. Modernity is obsessed with production. You enjoy reading? Why don’t you write a book? Then we get a situation where book production is at an all time high, yet reading at an all time low.

It is important for us to wake up, from this deep slumber and witness ourselves, that the situation calls for the liberation of our desires. The purpose of this hobby series was to bring back the purpose lost. To do something that is useless, completely worthless, to resist the mode of being under institutions, capitalism. To be unsorted into boxes of instrumentality.

The bureaucracy requires us to be sorted and be „human resources“, and treats us as livestock. Hobbies done for their own sake, offer no use for these institutions. They cannot categorize them, cannot monetize, instrumentalize them. You become flow, you resist. And that is beautiful.

Modernity is as far away from the Greek organization of polis as possible. There used to exist a concept of human flourishing or eudaimonia. A well being that is a goal of every human. In modern late stage capitalism, there is only survival, and hoping to be a good little obedient servant to your employer, and he might just find you useful enough to pay you a living wage.

So fuck all that. Resistance to structures that are working against us. Hobbies enable us agency, we play for once. Our mode of being changes to that which cares for our well being. Enter the circle of play. Do it well not because it pays, but because it matters.

Where everyone is there for the same love

In the last post I circled back to resistance to instrumentalization in hobbies. This post will expand upon the whole series once more and establish community in hobbies. Hobbies especially in the age of internet and online communities, help us form intimate, voluntary bonds grounded in shared interests.

Situated learning

I would like to draw upon the fact that hobbyists learn within a community of practice. Lave and Wegner defined it as a groups of people who: „share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly" which following from hobbies autotelic nature as well as its inherent hands on practice neatly grounds its potential for community.

The purpose of communities is to share knowledge. Even among traditional communities, as well as communities of practice knowledge is local, tied to specific traditions, commonly from shared values, histories, cultures, personal histories or similar. In the modern digital age, the potential to form communities of practice, has shifted towards forums.

As an online community space we will refer to simply as forum inside of this post, which will encompass spaces such as image boards, Reddit threads, or these good ol’ traditional forums that died out in the modern era. This allows me to not leave out any specific communities emerging in online spaces.

Inside of forums, one commonly tends to find tutorials, asks questions and engages in discussions of their hobbies. Such as a hobby I engaged myself being Personal Knowledge Management. People usually shared their own workflows, dashboards, or folder or link organisation. The community grew and bounced off of each other’s ideas and shared knowledge. This will be refereed to as living epistemes. Knowing and knowledge means being capable in the context.

The potential to form bonds

Forming a bond is possible within the potentiality of a hobby. Since hobbies create a space for gemeinschaftliche which roughly means, intimate, voluntary associates grounded in shared interest. Its key feature is that they are contrasted with imposed roles of gesellschaft, which is the bureaucratic, alienated relations of modernity according to Tönnies.

Modernity has weakened communities as people began interacting with each other based upon economic self-interest. This goes especially so within the traditional chronos time workspace. Even within social media online spaces, alienation is still apparent. Forums are not resistant to this alienation as the internet became rotten with algorithmic individualism and consumer logic of belonging within the bounds of neoliberal subjectivity.

Within hobbyist circles, identity is not arbitrarily assigned, rather it is earned through demonstration of commitment, knowledge or skill. Practice of a hobby within its proper elements, allows not only individual growth, rather the growth of the whole community engaging with it out of passion.

Friendship grounded in virtue

From a philosophical perspective, these communities reflect Aristotelian ideal of philia where funnily enough philosophy gets its name. It refers to friendship grounded in shared virtue or activity. This also realizes Habermas’ lifeworld, the sphere of communicative action uncolonized by systemic imperatives.

Since the spaces in our lives are colonised by neoliberal subjectivity and atomisation it became extremely difficult to find belonging. Which has resulted within the loneliness epidemic we are witnessing today. We are lonely due to a lack of community of practice, that can most effectively be found inside of hobbyist circles. Since they form micro-worlds where mutual recognition (Honneth) is granted through praxis, rather than status or utility.

As such belonging inside of these groups where we are not valued by output such as the workplace, school systems we can safely affirm the social dimension of the self. This means we are no longer mere tools of the system to be utilised effectively. As Mac Intrye argues, the narrative unity of a life requires participation in traditions.

Hobbies offer great potential to become such traditions, they are transmitted, contested, reinterpreted across generations. They are loci of memory, ritual and affirmation. Communities of practice are not atomistic nor collectivisitic to the point of individual dissolution into the group, rather they are individuated within it.

Community is a game

Communities of practice and belonging are essential to feel true belonging. The problem with „we are lacking community“ posts is that they do not offer a framework to ascend the condition of atomisation. My framework of autotelic and ludic hobbies provides one where we get to play.

Building upon Huizinga’s circle of play, in games we often play with other people. In hobbies it is none the different, kairos time, and the magic circle of play are not mutually exclusive with communities of practice. They on the contrary are fueled by it and expanded upon it.

A hobby fully matures when it enters symbolic exchange and when it ascends being a solitary practice. Only then does it become a shared language. Community is built upon playing a game of shared passion. Everyone is there for the same love, and are not being forced upon labor to compete with one another. They simply care for doing the craft the best it can be done. There is no economic incentive for expressing one self, in non-performative and authentic communities of practice.

Conclusion

This post answers finally the biggest mystery of why we lost third places, and everyone was looking at the wrong place. True community is found exactly inside of hobbies. Inside of our passions. The outlook of this whole series, allows us to re-interpret hobbies through the lens of one fueled by love, and passion. What we overlook is importance of doing things together.

Forums are new landscapes that offer potential for great connection, if used properly. All we need to do is embrace the autotelic ludic hobby I have outlined throughout the series. Once we do so and start sharing our passions with others we can make the world a better place.

We just need to become useless, not in a sense we are consuming endlessly being addicted to algorithms keeping us chained on a hedonic treadmill. Quite the opposite, this is the most useful you can be to corporations, leaders, governments and alike. They want to keep you passive, and consuming so that they can keep you in check, controlled governed, exploited, bound, regulated and measured. Communities of practice are an act of resistance to the system. They cannot regulate and control, measure, censor, inspect, direct, licence that which refuses to be measured by their absolutely outrageous standards.

It is my announcement that working on this series has been my pleasure. This is the last post in the part one of my series. This philosophy of hobbies is not full by no means. It is a new step in the right direction. I am very honored to have been able to provide my readers with a new perspective through which to look at hobbies.

I sincerely hope I have been able to persuade or convince my readers to the points I was making during the length of this series, into my new revised definition of hobbies. The philosophy certainly is nowhere close to completion and I have opened new discussions to be had surrounding this topic. Thank you to everyone who has supported me during this series.