Lockdown Hobbies

It's a kinda funny word, hobby.

"It's my hobby"

"You need a hobby"

"What hobbies do you have?"

Say it real fast five times in a row and you'll find yourself smiling.  

So while we're all minimizing our physical social intercourse (yeah, I know, some of my intellectual development never progressed past tenth grade), I'm more interested than ever in hobbies.

I don't believe that I have any hobbies.  Having a hobby implies a sustained emotional balance, i.e. doing something for the joy of immersing oneself in the experience (sustained boredom for me).  Collecting stamps would be an example of a hobby.  Sitting there in the evening, wearing a woolen vest, in a musty corner of your creaky old house at your roll top desk with a single light on the desk, holding up a square inch of some semi-rare collectible with a pair of tweezers, peering through your bifocals AND a magnifying glass and grunting in contentment at this particular bit of philatelic minutiae.

No disrespect if this is your happy place, but I decline.  

Back in the day, Cub fans had a Hobbie.

Part of the reason for my emotional rejection of this type of engagement is the obsessive side of my personality.  Should you ask mi esposa, she would likely say that is a side that encompasses about 97% of me.  I gotta mostly do stuff that has winners and losers and boo-yah! moments.  Things that evoke passion and emotion, hitting the adrenalin button.

I can hit total Lite-osity (the marketing guys at Miller Beer created that term a zillion years ago, just for me, I think) by doing the passion zoomy stuff and then backsliding, thereby getting to that level of mindfulness that Stamp Man above reached by staring at his little philatelic ornament, except my route was actually fun. 

BTW, I think numismatics is a cousin of philately.  Just sayin'.

Back at hobbies, upon further review, I may have several, I guess, though they've had to pass through the obsession phase and then settle back...I need to ponder this some more.  This part of the discussion is the gateway to the payoff topic, watching TV during lockdown.

My imagination tends to take control of reality on a pretty regular basis.  I think that skews me toward being eclectic.  Mi esposa suggests that it makes me a nut.

Cruel woman...

These worlds converge when my long standing hobby -- being a hypochondriac -- gets supercharged by the onslaught of TV presentations.  I learned the hard way, some years ago, just how traumatic the journey (everyone has "a journey" these days) can be when we would watch "House", the TV series about the Sherlock Holmes of infectious diseases starring Hugh Laurie.  We'd turn that on and by the end of the show I would be suffering from the symptoms of that week's guest disease, including genetic disorders, chemically induced side effects, all kinds of crazy stuff.  Cruel woman would usually ride to the rescue with a less-than-gentle interlude to her head shaking and derisive laughter, interjecting "you're nuts, I'm going to bed" as her unique and tender way of bringing me back on course.

In light of that ersatz medical history, I have been limiting my COVID-19 updates.  Maybe 'll catch up when they issue a commemorative stamp.