The way to live life is to: find a hobby that makes you money, find a hobby that keeps you healthy, and find a hobby that makes you smarter and more creative. That’s a quote from Silicon Valley’s sweetheart and angel investor extraordinaire Naval Ravikant.
Hobbies and Leisure are two parts of life that got sidetracked as the world progressed into what we see now.
Sir Ken Robinson’s TED Talk gives a hint on why this is the case: The Industrial Revolution caused education to become more about serving Industries and markets than helping people lead better lives.
Here’s another thought: When Plato explored the concept of education in ancient Greece, over 2,400 years ago, the goal was to help individuals become better people. If you examine the etymology of the word “school,” you’ll find that it derives from the Greek word “scholē,” which originally meant ‘leisure’ or ‘free time.
But why should hobbies be given so much importance? I would say there are not one, but THREE opportunities that hobbies open up in your life— Out of box thinking, a better awareness of your ignorance and a super power called the flow state. Let’s break down each of these one by one.
Thinking out of the Box
We often hear about ‘thinking outside the box’, but what does it truly mean, and how do our hobbies play a role? Sure, hobbies may help you come up with wacky ideas; but more than that, hobbies can help ‹you cultivate a mind that is agile, adaptable and unafraid to challenge your own worldview.
Hobbies push you to see the world from different angles and adapt to new situations. Take learning a new language, for instance – it forces you to grapple with unfamiliar grammar rules and sentence structures, training your brain to be more flexible. Or consider playing a musical instrument, where you constantly switch between reading sheet music, coordinating your fingers, and listening to the overall sound – a true workout for cognitive flexibility.
We all have mental models – those ingrained assumptions about how the world works. But these models can also become mental traps, limiting our ability to see new possibilities. For instance ‘First principles approach’ is often seen as a one size fits all, but then again a lot of the problems that we face in life are wicked problems—Complex, interconnected issues with no single solution or definition.
Hobbies can help us break free from these constraints. When we immerse ourselves in a new hobby, we’re exposed to different perspectives and ways of thinking. A chess player learns to anticipate their opponent’s moves, a gardener learns to work with the rhythms of nature. These experiences challenge our assumptions and open up new mental pathways, leading to truly innovative thinking.
Having well-nurtured hobbies not only gives you a fresh perspective on matters, but it also gives you the prowess to handle wicked problems, namely by Serving as an ignorance-discovery mechanism.
Ignorance Discovery: Anti Libraries
There’s an old saying: “The more you know, the more you realise you don’t know.” It’s a paradox that captures a fundamental truth about knowledge and learning.
Psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger famously described a cognitive bias where people with low ability in a particular area tend to overestimate their competence. This “illusion of knowledge” can lead to overconfidence and poor decision-making. This is particularly important because we have a tendency to over-rely on what we know to make decisions while discarding what we don’t know. But then how do we get better at understanding our ignorances?
A good approach for this is the Anti-Library. The Anti-library is a concept that I came across while reading the Italian thinker, Umberto Eco. An Anti-Library, is a repository of books, just like the library, but the unread books take centre stage. Similarly, nurturing a hobby can serve as a personal anti-library, a space for curiosity-driven exploration that expands our horizons beyond structured learning. Hobbies often lead to meaningful connections, revealing areas of ignorance and fostering self-awareness, which in turn fuels personal growth.
This approach to embracing the unknown can be applied to other aspects of life, encouraging continuous learning and adaptability. This adds value to your problem solving capacity. And the best part of becoming aware of your ignorance is that it clears up your cognitive bandwidth; Which brings me to the next benefit of a hobby— access to the flow state.
Tapping into the flow state
In “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience,” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes flow as a state of complete absorption in an activity, where time seems to disappear and we’re fully immersed in the present moment. This state is crucial for lifelong problem-solvers, as it promotes creativity, focus, and optimal performance.
Hobbies offer a natural playground for experiencing flow. Whether it’s painting, playing an instrument, or coding, the challenge and enjoyment inherent in hobbies can trigger flow states. By actively engaging in these activities, we learn to recognize and tap into flow, ultimately adapting this skill to other aspects of our lives, like work or studies. Cultivating flow empowers us to tackle challenges with heightened focus and creativity, leading to more fulfilling and productive experiences.
As philosopher John Vervaeke eloquently describes, flow is like climbing. We can’t fully prepare for every move in advance; instead, we must adapt and respond in the moment. Similarly, in a flow state, we navigate challenges with a heightened sense of awareness, making intuitive decisions and seamlessly integrating new information. Our hobbies help us develop this crucial skill, enabling us to tackle complex problems in other areas of life with agility and confidence.
Conclusion
Hobbies are a way to learn more about yourself and the world around you. Pay attention to what makes you curious, and you might discover a hobby that truly lights you up. It could be something you love doing for years to come, opening new doors and enriching your life in unexpected ways. Follow your inner curiosity, and who knows, it might develop into a hobby that will nurture in you a love for learning, enriching your life in ways that you never imagined.
