Hobbies: More Than a Distraction

Hobbies: More Than a Distraction

I am a rock star.

Well, I do sometimes dream of impressing people by playing beautiful or exciting music. My instrument of choice in these brief flights from reality is the guitar. Most often it is a Gibson Les Paul—you know, the preferred instrument of rock stars for over 50 years.

I own a few different instruments, both electric and acoustic. What I lack is the skill to create anything worth listening to.

I know, I know…it takes an awful lot of practice to be a bona fide rock star. That and long, blonde hair and a pair of stretchy pants.

I don’t know which would be more painful for my wife and neighbors—listening to me practice for hours on end, or seeing me in spandex. But out of love for my wife and general respect for my neighbors I have chosen to suspend my guitar hero ambitions for the time being.

Instead I’m learning to make guitars of my own.

Over the past few months my good friend, Brian, has helped me to build an electric guitar, a Les Paul Jr. with beautifully figured mahogany on the front and a maple neck. He is a master woodworker and has kindly allowed me to tag along as he dives into building instruments with and for his family members.

For me this really has been a dream come true, and I hope to create a number of instruments that my children and grandchildren can enjoy long after I’m gone.

I guess it’s kind of like the rock-star ambition without all the embarrassment.

Ruth has been very supportive of my new hobby. (Perhaps the stretchy-pants alternative motivates her to get behind me on this dream.) She encourages me despite my goof-ups along the way, and the little bit of time it takes away from projects around the house.

She has rightly observed that I’ve always had some sort of hobby or distraction as a diversion from the long work and service hours I tend to put in.

I love making pizza and bread for family and friends, and I built a wood-burning brick oven in the back yard for just that purpose. (This oven is much better than the one I built in California, and makes it easy to host some large parties. It isn’t pretty, but pretty darn functional!)

Before brick ovens I was into bonsai. Yes, I actually had a bunch of tiny trees in pots on our back patio, some of which were becoming rather attractive. (That hobby ended when a serious medical emergency kept us away from home for several days, and the trees all died from lack of water. Oh, well…)

I’ve had a life-long flirtation with oil painting. Whether in the mountains or walking along the beach I yearn to recreate a piece of it and give it to someone else to enjoy.

I guess want to create things of beauty, something that can be enjoyed through the years by people I care about.

Erik Erikson, a renowned expert in human development, suggested middle-aged adults who don’t create something of lasting value tend to feel stagnant and can become depressed or desperate. This seems to contribute to what we often call “mid-life crisis”, when some men or women go off the rails and do foolish things to recapture a sense of youth.

But of course trying to pretend we are not approaching old age (and our eventual demise) doesn’t really meet our needs. And we can never get enough of what we don’t need because what we don’t need cannot satisfy us.

This funny guitar fetish or mine is really part of a larger trend. Since about age 40 I’ve felt a great need to “pay it forward”, teaching students and intern counselors things I’ve learned since beginning this profession years ago.

Of course my children are those I want most to benefit from anything I’ve learned over the years. I often think of ways I might help them to learn from my experiences without trapping them in a room and boring them to death.

Do yourself a favor—find some way of creating something durable that others can enjoy for years to come, or make a difference in someone’s life. Build, paint, design or beautify something of value. Teach, inspire, encourage, or mentor others in something that can improve their lives.

Hobbies and distractions can help us to keep our sanity when we are tied up in challenges of day-to-day life. They are only a waste of time if they distract us from the important things and important people who need and deserve our attention. Brief, intentional steps away from serious tasks can actually improve our performance as well as our mental well-being.

As you consider potential hobbies, consider the possibility of doing something that makes the world a little brighter, a little more beautiful, for even one other person.