A
hobby is an activity or interest that is
undertaken for pleasure or relaxation, often in one's
spare time.
Etymology
A
hobby horse is a wooden or
wickerwork toy made to be ridden just
like a real horse (which was sometimes called a "
Hobby"). From this came
the expression "to ride one's hobby-horse", meaning "to follow a
favorite pastime", and in turn,
hobby in the modern sense
of recreation.
Hobbies are practiced 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
chef may enjoy playing
computer games as a hobby, while a professional
game tester might enjoy cooking.
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.
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
that is otherwise considered boring, such as train spotting or stamp collecting.
Development of hobbies into other ventures
Whilst some hobbies strike many people as trivial or boring,
hobbyists have found something compelling and entertaining about
them. Much early scientific research was, in effect, a hobby of the
wealthy; 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. Thus a British
conservationist recalls that when seen
wearing field glasses at a London station in the 1930s he was asked
if he was going to the (horse) races. The anecdote indicates that
at the time an interest in nature was not widely perceived as a
credible hobby. Practitioners of that hobby went on to become the
germs of the
conservation
movement that flourished in Britain from 1965 onwards and
became a global political movement within a generation. Conversely,
the hobby of
aircraft spotting
probably originated as part of a serious activity designed to
detect arriving waves of enemy aircraft entering English airspace
during
World War II. In peacetime it
usually has no such practical or social purpose.
Developing a Hobby Into Hobby Business
It can be easy to turn a Hobby Business into a money making
opportunity because the driver is passion and to some degree
obsession. Turning your passion into a business say for example in
arts and crafts, a home studio is all you need; a space to be
creative. Gift shops, specialty stores, galleries and arts cafes
are good avenues to exhibit and sell artworks, pottery, woodcraft,
sewing craft.
Another example of Hobby Business is a hobby farm. Breeding alpacas
is very popular among early retirees as is the old fashioned hobby
of preserving and
pickling. Homemade,
specialty foods, such as, puddings,
preserves and sauces are taking over in popularity
over the more mainstream commercial varieties, because of the
trending attitude to buy
organic
especially if they are homemade produce grown from the
manufacturer's own farm.
Scrapbooking is
a modern profitable hobby. Known as scrappers, these hobbyists have
created a new industry from their passion. Scrapbooking websites
are growing and thriving worldwide.
Types of 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. There are also individuals, who take up
collection of coins (
Numismatics) or
autographs (Philography) as their hobby;
in both the cases the people try to hold on to the identities.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 (and collecting stamps in their passports),
states, national parks,
counties
etc.
Games
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. Many games
help develop practical
skills and serve as
exercise or perform an
educational,
simulational or
psychological role & also roaming.
Outdoor recreation
Outdoor pursuits can be loosely
considered to be the group of
sports and
activities which are dependent
on the great
outdoors, incorporating such
things as
hill walking,
hiking,
backpacking,
canoeing,
kayaking,
climbing,
caving, and
arguably broader groups such as
watersport and
snowsport. Outdoor sports most often include
nature in the "sport".
While obviously enjoyed by many as a bit of fun, an adrenaline
rush, or an escape from reality, 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
footpath are eroded
by excessive numbers of visitors.
Performing arts
Many hobbies involve performing by the hobbyist, such as
singing,
acting,
juggling,
magic,
dancing and other
performing arts.
Creative Hobbies
Some hobbies result in an end product of sorts. Examples of this
would be woodworking,
photography,
moviemaking,
jewelry making, playing a
musical instrument, software projects,
artistic projects (such as drawing, painting,
etc.), creating models out of card or paper called
papercraft up to higher end projects like
building or restoring a car, such as a
Jowett
or building a computer from scratch. While these may just be for
the enjoyment of the hobbyist, they sometimes have potential to be
a small business.
Scale Modeling / Dioramas
Replicas of real things in a smaller scale go all the way back to
prehistoric times, as small clay "dolls" and other children's toys
have been found near known population areas.
Greeks,
Romans, and
Persians took the form to a greater
depth during their years of world domination, using scale replicas
of enemy
fortifications, coastal
defense lines, and other geographic fixtures to plan battles.
At the turn of the Industrial Age through the 1920s, families could
more often afford things such as
electric trains, wind up toys
(typically boats or cars) and the increasingly valuable tin toy
soldiers.
Model engineering refers to
building functioning machinery in metal, such as
internal combustion motors and
live steam models or locomotives. This is a
demanding hobby, requiring a multitude of large and expensive
tools, e.g.
lathes and
mill. This hobby originated in the UK in the
late 1800s, later spread and flourished in the mid-1900s. Due to
the expense and space required, it is becoming more rare.
Scale modeling as we know it today became popular shortly after
World War II. Prior to 1946, children
as well as adults were content in carving and shaping wooden
replicas from block wood kits, often depicting enemy aircraft to
help in identification in case of invasion.
With the advent of modern plastics, the amount of skill required to
get the basic shape accurately shown for any given subject was
lessened, making it easier for people of all ages to begin
assembling replicas in varying scales. Superheros, aeroplanes,
boats, cars, tanks, artillery, and even figures of soldiers became
quite popular subjects to build, paint and display. Although almost
any subject can be found in almost any scale, there are common
scales for such miniatures which remain constant today. The most
popular scales for each subject are (in order of popularity):
- Cars (1:24, 1:25, 1:32)
- Railroads (1:87/1:76, 1:160, 1:220, plus ridable "backyard railroads", 1:8 and
smaller.)
- Planes (1:48, 1:72, 1:32)
- Armor (1:35, 1:72: 1:48)
- Soldiers (1:32, 1:35, 1:48, 1:6)
Figures are probably the most variable of all subjects in terms of
scale, and are often referred to as their metric equivalent... for
example, a 1:32 scale figure soldier is more commonly described as
"54mm". Likewise other popular sizes are 90mm, 120mm and almost
every increment in between. An example of a Diorama hobbie is
Warhammer 40,000, from
Games Workshop
In addition to plastic kits, resin has become a popular material
for "short run" productions. The level of detail is often quite
exquisite, and while more expensive than the typical plastic
soldier, is much easier to work with and modify than White Metal or
Pewter figures.
Scale modeling is no longer a high growth industry as it was during
the 60's and 70's, but there are still thousands of retail shops
selling kits, supplies, paints, and tools to support both the new
and established hobbyist. There are certainly more companies
producing more varieties of kits on various subjects than ever
before, and the levels of detail has become unbelievably accurate
with the advent of modern drafting and molding equipment, and
digitized
CAD software to drive accuracy to the
1000th of an inch.
With the increased costs of good kits moving upward, and
entertainment competition for youth moving more towards computers
and video gaming in the home, the average age of the avid hobbyist
is now much older than ever before - with adults making up the vast
majority of enthusiasts. At the same time, there are probably more
people building now than ever, and there is a large selection of
supportive magazines such as
Fine Scale Modeller,
Military Miniatures in Review (MMiR) and
Tamiya Magazine to please almost every niche and
taste of interest, from every imaginable era. There are also
several modeling clubs in most cities, with the largest and best
known
International Plastic
Modeler's Society (
IPMS) supporting chapters
and contests around the world.
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
practised at least since the 10th millennium BC with the
introduction of
pottery. There is
archaeological evidence of roasted foodstuffs, both animal and
vegetable, in human (
Homo
erectus) campsites dating from the earliest known use of
fire some 800,000 years ago.
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).
Reading
Reading, such as reading
books,
magazines,
comics, or
newspapers, is a
common hobby and one that can its origins back many hundreds of
years. A love of
literature later in life
may be sparked by an interest in reading children's literature as a
child One of the great benefits of reading as a hobby is that it
can be taken up and put down whenever a free moment presents
itself. When reading
paperback books, it
is easy to take the reading material on
holiday or on
public transport with very little
inconvenience. One great advantage is that it allows the human mind
to create its own view of the world portrayed in the book,
something that can be disappointing when a book is made into a play
for
television or into a
film.
See also
Bibliography
Stebbins, Robert A. (2007)
Serious Leisure: A Perspective for
Our Time. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
External links
References
- Chicago Manual Style (CMS): hobby.
- Dictionary.com. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hobby
(accessed: July 12, 2007).
- Children's reading Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (1863–1944).
On the Art of Reading. 1920. (retrieved21 April 2009)
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