21–30 of 164 posts
There are two ways you can get exercise out of a bicycle: you can “overhaul” it, or you can ride it. On the whole, I am not sure that a man who takes his pleasure overhauling does not have the best of the bargain. He is independent of the weather and the wind; the state of the roads troubles him not. Give him a screw-hammer, a bundle of rags, an oil-can, and something to sit down upon, and he is happy for the day. He…
Well, you know, except when we look in the forest or upon the course or slopes.
Reddit banter is only visible if you visit Reddit. Otherwise not.
There are two ways you can get exercise out of a bicycle: you can “overhaul” it, or you can ride it. On the whole, I am not sure that a man who takes his pleasure overhauling does not have the best of the bargain. He is independent of the weather and the wind; the state of the roads troubles him not. Give him a screw-hammer, a bundle of rags, an oil-can, and something to sit down upon, and he is happy for the day. He…
There are two ways you can get exercise out of a bicycle: you can “overhaul” it, or you can ride it. On the whole, I am not sure that a man who takes his pleasure overhauling does not have the best of the bargain. He is independent of the weather and the wind; the state of the roads troubles him not. Give him a screw-hammer, a bundle of rags, an oil-can, and something to sit down upon, and he is happy for the day. He…
Great quote, thank you. I enjoyed Three Men in a Boat, but never read this one. It may be time to revisit Jerome.
On the otherhand I love tinkering with motorcycles. Not buying gear so much but researching and restoring them in my shop. Maybe its that engines are so much more technical or maybe its the slight spectre of death or serious bodily injury that keeps me from enjoying riding them as much. But I always feel a little disappointed when its all fixed and back together.
There are two ways you can get exercise out of a bicycle: you can “overhaul” it, or you can ride it. On the whole, I am not sure that a man who takes his pleasure overhauling does not have the best of the bargain. He is independent of the weather and the wind; the state of the roads troubles him not. Give him a screw-hammer, a bundle of rags, an oil-can, and something to sit down upon, and he is happy for the day. He…
This is why I own more than one bicycle.
but i too have this “solution”
I was a game collector even when I was a child back in the heyday of console generations 4 and 5 all the way into my mid twenties, and also a game player since then up to the present as well. When I was much younger I used to love collecting original hardware and media complete in box and everything, and I kept everything I got when it was new in absolutely pristine condition (I was a very atypical child) but as I got older I grew tired of the collecting aspect of video games and sold everything off. At some point it dawned on me I was just buying stuff and putting it in a box (falling into the kit quadrant) and not really playing the games at all. After realizing all that, and when I had acquired everything I wanted (I tended to collect a mix of only games I liked + genre instead of by system, so my collecting requirements were much smaller and easier to achieve), the fun was over and I cashed out some years later. With retrogaming I now vastly prefer a Raspberry Pi and a gamepad in the living room. Fortunately I was able to get in and get out of the game collecting hobby when it was a fairly cheap hobby to participate in (i.e. when CIB copies of classic games were like tens of dollars at most).
I was also an avid tabletop gamer who was into the playing and collecting aspect of Magic: The Gathering and other TCGs, particularly Legend of the Five Rings, Vampire: The Eternal Struggle, and VS System. I started playing MTG way back in the ancient days and had a particular taste for vintage. I also played standard, booster draft, legacy, and extended, but vintage was always my favorite. Back then vintage was accessible on a high school budget with planning and dedication, and wasn't the rich man's game it now, at least if one is not using proxies. For a long time I was both into the competitive side of the game, as well as the collecting side of the game. Over time I grew tired of the playing aspect of Magic: The Gathering and vastly preferred the collecting aspect of it, before life priorities changed entirely and I lost interest in TCGs completely.
I don't really do the collecting/kit hounding side of any hobbies anymore, I prefer the actual doing of the thing instead, but I am grateful I was able to get in, enjoy it fully, and get out of the collecting aspect of both video games and MTG long before both became impossibly expensive to participate in, though it is fun to dip in and see what is going on with those things from time to time.
Not stated in the article, but I suspect that another big reason a lot of hobbyists obsess over the gear and kit aspect of a hobby is because buying kit is a substitute for not having time or energy to actually do the hobby itself. In some sense, buying kit is materializing fantasies about actually doing the thing, but not having the time or the place to do it.
Insightful post. Maybe I’m burnt out, but I was kind of sad to see the pivot to “how to be a better worker” at the end of it. For me, when it comes to hobbies the it’s pretty sequential. I usually start with discussing, then start doing/gearing while discussing, then abandon the discussing and forget most of what I learned about gear, but usually keep doing. I spent a few months reading about bicycle sizing and compo…
Same way with my guitar - bought pedals, gear, etc for years in high school. Now I have one main guitar and play my amp on the same setting almost every time I play.
Also same deal with all my programming setup shit, I did vim/tmux, played with emacs, and now I almost always just use VSCode.
I guess my archetype is that I like to tinker and fuck around, but once I settle in to something that works for me, I largely lose interest in that, and just do whatever makes for the lowest friction to do the actual thing.
I started off in the "enjoying collecting gear" quadrant of photography, then I heard an insightful comment by a pro: "If you have $5K, you can either buy one good lens and use it to take photos of the pigeons outside your apartment, or spend that money on a destination holiday and take pictures of amazingly beautiful places with your old lens which still works perfectly fine." I stopped buying new kit and started go…