Hobby

For other uses, see Hobby (disambiguation).

A hobby is a spare-time recreational pursuit of certain activities according to one's special concern and interests. The same activity can be considered professional when it is the source of subsistence, but it can be a hobby if it is a recreational pursuit. The absence of the sense of burden for subsistence, feelings of obligation or duty is a characteristic of hobby. One pursues hobby out of pure enjoyment. Some choose their profession as a continuation or extension of hobby.

Hobby is often associated with Play (activity), Flow (psychology), and Creativity.

Origin of term

A hobby-horse was a wooden or wickerwork toy made to be ridden just like the real hobby. From this came the expression "to ride one's hobby-horse", meaning "to follow a favourite pastime", and in turn, hobby in the modern sense of recreation.

Hobbies are practised for interest and enjoyment, rather than financial reward. Examples include collecting, creative and artistic pursuits, making, tinkering, sports and adult education. Engaging in a hobby can lead to acquiring substantial skill, knowledge, and experience. However, personal fulfillment is the aim.

What are hobbies for some people are professions for others: a game tester may enjoy cooking as a hobby, while a professional chef might enjoy playing (and helping to debug) computer games. Generally speaking, the person who does something for fun, not remuneration, is called an amateur (or hobbyist), as distinct from a professional.

An important determinant of what is considered a hobby, as distinct from a profession (beyond the lack of remuneration), is probably how easy it is to make a living at the activity. Almost no one can make a living at cigarette card or stamp collecting, but many people find it enjoyable; so it is commonly regarded as a hobby.

Amateur astronomers often make meaningful contributions to the professionals. It is not entirely uncommon for a hobbyist to be the first to discover a celestial body or event. Much early scientific research was, in effect, a hobby; more recently, Linux began as a student's hobby. A hobby may not be as trivial as it appears at a time when it has relatively few followers. Hobbies can be developed into other ventures.

In the UK, the pejorative noun anorak (similar to the Japanese "otaku", meaning a geek or enthusiast) is often applied to people who obsessively pursue a particular hobby.

Basic Types of hobbies

There are numerous kinds of hobbies. Almost all professional activities can be pursued as a hobby. The following is only a partial list of popular hobbies.

Collecting

The hobby of collecting consists of acquiring specific items based on a particular interest of the collector. These collections of things are often highly organized, carefully cataloged, and attractively displayed. Since collecting depends on the interests of the individual collector, it may deal with almost any subject. The depth and breadth of the collection may also vary. Some collectors choose to focus on a specific subtopic within their area of general interest: for example, 19th Century postage stamps, milk bottle labels from Sussex, or Mongolian harnesses and tack. Others prefer to keep a more general collection, accumulating Star Trek merchandise, or stamps from all countries of the world. Some collections are capable of being completed, at least to the extent of owning one sample of each possible item in the collection (e.g. a copy of every book by Agatha Christie). Collectors who specifically try to assemble complete collections in this way are sometimes called "completists." Upon completing a particular collection, they may stop collecting, expand the collection to include related items, or begin an entirely new collection. The most popular fields in collecting have specialized commercial dealers that trade in the items being collected, as well as related accessories. Many of these dealers started as collectors themselves, then turned their hobby into a profession. There are some limitations on collecting, however. Someone who has the financial means to collect stamps might not be able to collect sports-cars, for example. One alternative to collecting physical objects is collecting experiences of a particular kind. Examples include collecting through observation or photography (especially popular for transportation, e.g. train spotting, aircraft spotting, metrophiles, bus spotting; see also I-Spy), bird-watching, and systematically visiting continents, countries, states, national parks, counties etc.

Games

File:Paul Cézanne, Les joueurs de carte (1892-95).jpg

Card game, 1895.

A game is a structured or semi-structured recreational activity, usually undertaken for enjoyment (although sometimes for physical or vocational training). A goal that the players try to reach and a set of rules concerning what the players can or cannot do create the challenge and structure in a game, and are thus central to its definition. Known to have been played as far back as prehistoric times, games are generally distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration. Because a wide variety of activities are enjoyable, numerous types of games have developed.

What creates an enjoyable game varies from one individual to the next. Age, understanding (of the game), intelligence level, and (to some extent) personality are factors that determine what games a person enjoys. Depending on these factors, people vary the number and complexity of objectives, rules, challenges, and participants to increase their enjoyment.

Games generally involve mental and/or physical stimulation. For this reason, they are beneficial after a large meal or a long and tedious task, but counterproductive if played immediately before sleeping. Many games help develop practical skills and serve as exercise or perform an educational, simulational or psychological role.

Sport/Outdoor activities

One can enjoy sports and/or outdoor activities as a hobby (see Sport). There are many kinds of sports and one can play any sport as a hobby. Outdoor pursuits can also be loosely considered to be the group of sports and activities which are dependent on the great outdoors, incorporating such things as fishing, hunting, hill walking, trekking, canoeing, kayaking, climbing, caving, and arguably broader groups such as watersports and snowsport.

While obviously enjoyed by many, outdoor sport is also frequently used as an extremely effective medium in education and teambuilding. It is this ethos that has given rise to links with young people, such as the Duke of Edinburgh's Award and PGL, and large numbers of outdoor education centres being established, as the stress on the importance of a balanced and widespread education continues to grow. Depending on the persons' desired level of adrenaline, outdoors can be considered a type of hobby.

As interest increases, so has the rise of commercial outdoor pursuits, with outdoor kit stores opening up in large numbers and thriving, as well as outdoor pursuits journalism and magazines, both on paper and online.

The increased accessibility of outdoor pursuits resources has been the source of some negative publicity over the years also, with complaints of destroying the landscape. A widely-seen example is the destruction of hillsides as footpaths are eroded by excessive numbers of visitors.

Creative Hobbies

Some hobbies result in an end product of sorts. Examples of this would be woodworking, software projects, artistic projects, creating models out of card or paper called papercraft up to higher end projects like building or restoring a car, or building a computer from scratch. While some of these may just be for the enjoyment of the hobbyist, there have been instances where it has come into demand at the request of friends or passerbys observing said project. At this point it has the potential to become a small business.

Cooking

Cooking is an act of preparing food for eating. It encompasses a vast range of methods, tools and combinations of ingredients to improve the flavour or digestibility of food. It generally requires the selection, measurement and combining of ingredients in an ordered procedure in an effort to achieve the desired result. Constraints on success include the variability of ingredients, ambient conditions, tools and the skill of the individual cooking. The diversity of cooking worldwide is a reflection of the myriad nutritional, aesthetic, agricultural, economic, cultural and religious considerations that impact upon it. Cooking requires applying heat to a food which usually, though not always, chemically transforms it, thus changing its flavor, texture, appearance, and nutritional properties. Cooking proper, as opposed to roasting, requires the boiling of water in a receptacle, and was practiced at least since the 10th millennium B.C.E. with the introduction of pottery.

Gardening

Gardening is the art of growing plants with the goal of crafting a purposeful landscape. Residential gardening most often takes place in or about a residence, in a space referred to as the garden. Although a garden typically is located on the land near a residence, it may also be located in a roof, in an atrium, on a balcony, in a windowbox, or on a patio or vivarium.

A gardener

Gardening also takes place in non-residential green areas, such as parks, public or semi-public gardens (botanical gardens or zoological gardens), amusement and theme parks, along transportation corridors, and around tourist attractions and hotels. In these situations, a staff of gardeners or groundskeepers maintains the gardens.

Indoor gardening is concerned with the growing of houseplants within a residence or building, in a conservatory, or in a greenhouse. Indoor gardens are sometimes incorporated as part of air conditioning or heating systems.

Water gardening is concerned with growing plants adapted to pools and ponds. Bog gardens are also considered a type of water garden. These all require special conditions and considerations. A simple water garden may consist solely of a tub containing the water and plant(s).

See also

• List of basic hobby topics
• List of hobbies

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Barseghian, Tina. Get a Hobby! 101 All-Consuming Diversions for Any Lifestyle. New York: Collins, 2007. ISBN 0061215279 ISBN 9780061215278

• Brightbill, Dorothy. Quilting As a Hobby. New York: Sterling Pub. Co, 1964.

• Hobson, Burton, and Robert Obojski. Coin Collecting As a Hobby. New York: Sterling Pub. Co, 1986. ISBN 0806947497 ISBN 9780806947495 ISBN 0806947489 ISBN 9780806947488

• Hobson, Burton, Robert Obojski, and Burton Hobson. Stamp Collecting As a Hobby. New York: Sterling, 1986.ISBN 0806947942 ISBN 9780806947945 ISBN 0806947950 ISBN 9780806947952

• International Philatelic Association, Rutherford Stamp Club, and Society of Philatelic Americans. Hobbies. Chicago: Lightner Pub. Co.], 1931. ISSN 0018-2907

• Kelly, Harold Caleb. Clock Repairing As a Hobby. New York: Association Press, 1972. ISBN 0809618362 ISBN 9780809618361

• Luciani, V. J. Amateur Radio, Super Hobby! New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984. ISBN 0070389594 ISBN 9780070389595

• 2007. "Hobby QA". Sky and Telescope. 114, no. 6: 96. ISSN:0037-6604

• 2007. "LIFE AFTER WORK - Retirees Are Turning to Hobby Farming for a Better Quality of Life". Time. 58.

External links

• Find My Hobby. Retrieved December 10, 2007.
• Discover a hobby. Retrieved December 10, 2007.

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