The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise
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The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise
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Re: The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise
#2I feel like this is me spinning in circles deciding on “the best language” to use for a side project, never committing, and then inevitably losing momentum.
Frameworks and languages are a software engineer’s “kit”, I guess?
Re: The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise
#3There 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 has to put up with certain disadvantages, of course; there is no joy without alloy. He himself always looks like a tinker, and his machine always suggests the idea that, having stolen it, he has tried to disguise it; but as he rarely gets beyond the first milestone with it, this, perhaps, does not much matter. The mistake some people make is in thinking they can get both forms of sport out of the same machine. This is impossible; no machine will stand the double strain. You must make up your mind whether you are going to be an “overhauler” or a rider.
Personally, I prefer to ride, therefore I take care to have near me nothing that can tempt me to overhaul. When anything happens to my machine I wheel it to the nearest repairing shop. If I am too far from the town or village to walk, I sit by the roadside and wait till a cart comes along.
My chief danger, I always find, is from the wandering overhauler. The sight of a broken-down machine is to the overhauler as a wayside corpse to a crow; he swoops down upon it with a friendly yell of triumph. At first I used to try politeness. I would say: “It is nothing; don’t you trouble. You ride on, and enjoy yourself, I beg it of you as a favour; please go away.”
Experience has taught me, however, that courtesy is of no use in such an extremity.
Now I say: “You go away and leave the thing alone, or I will knock your silly head off.”
“three men on the bummel”, 1914
Re: The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise
#4A great example of this is my sailing buddy.
Last year, we probably spent 60 hours working improvements and noncritical fixes, 100 hours on discussions and watching videos, and about 6 hours sailing.
Re: The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise
#5There 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 exactly why I switched my sport of choice from cycling to running. In cycling, I kept getting pulled into the gear and tinkering. (It didn't help that I raced cyclocross, so during race season, every Monday was spent cleaning and repairing the result of the previous day's races). TBH, it was fun, but if I spent as much time training as I did tinkering, maybe I would have had some decent race results.
With running, it's harder to believe that the gear is what's holding me back from performance. Get a rotation of shoes, and that's pretty much it. My shorts and tops probably need to be replaced at this point before their growing transparency scandalizes the neighborhood, but as long as they're light and sweat-wicking, it doesn't matter too much what I replace them with.
But then I made the mistake of getting into rock climbing...
Re: The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise
#6This is very insightful and I agree 100% :)
Re: The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise
#7There 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 exactly why I switched my sport of choice from cycling to running. In cycling, I kept getting pulled into the gear and tinkering. (It didn't help that I raced cyclocross, so during race season, every Monday was spent cleaning and repairing the result of the previous day's races). TBH, it was fun, but if I spent as much time training as I did tinkering, maybe I would have had some decent race results. With run…
Haa...cyclocross is definitely gear intensive.
I always enjoyed running becasue I could be ready in like 2 minutes vs going for a bike ride that involved at a minimum kitting up, pumping the tires, and more often than that for the type of riding I like (cross/mtb) I'd also have to drive to a destination. Now I can't run due to injury/surgery, so I have a bike on the trainer now and that's my tv time. minimizes the bike futzing.
Re: The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise
#8The author misses the concept of passion I think. It’s a major assumption that everyone has the same amount of time to discuss and or do, and I think it’s an incorrect/useless assumption.
There are certainly people who talk about hobbies more than actually doing them (it felt like this article was targeted negatively towards these folks), but often the biggest doers are also the biggest discussers.
Re: The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise
#9There 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…
1900?
It is a very funny book that also predicted the rise of Hitler.
There is an accident that happens early on in the book that my dad replicated over 100 years later in exactly the same way.
Re: The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise
#10Some hobbies are much harder to do than others. For those, the doing will be a lot less than the discussing. Examples, scuba but don't live close to water, flying, but can't afford to do it frequently, etc.