THE IMPORTANCE OF HOBBIES
THE IMPORTANCE OF HOBBIES
A gifted American psychologist has said, ’Worry is a
spasm of the emotion; the mind catches hold of something and will not let it
go.’ It is useless to argue with the mind in this condition. The stronger the
will, the more futile the task. One can only gently insinuate something else
into its convulsive grasp. If this something else is rightly chosen. If it is
really attended by the illumination of another field of interest, gradually,
and often quite swiftly, the old undue grip relaxes and the process of
recuperation and repair begins.
The cultivation of a hobby and new forms of interest is
therefore a policy of first importance to a public man. But this is not a
business that can be undertaken in a day or swiftly improvised by a mere
command of the will. The growth of alternative mental interest in is a long
process. The seeds must be carefully chosen; they must fall on a good ground;
they must be, sedulously tended,. If the vivifying fruits are to be at hand
when needed.
To be really happy and really safe, one ought to have
at least two or three hobbies, and they must all be real. It is no use starting late in life to say: ‘I
will take an interest in this or that.’ Such an attempt only aggravates the
strain of mental effort. A man may acquire great knowledge of topics
unconnected with his daily work, and yet hardly get any benefit or relief. It
is no use doing what you like; you have got to like what you do. Broadly speaking, human beings may be divided
into three classes: those who are toiled to death, those who are worried to
death, and those who are bored to death. It is no use offering the manual labourer,
tired out with a hard week’s sweat and effort, the chance of playing a game of
football or baseball on Saturday afternoon. It is no use inviting the
politician or the professional or businessmen, who has been working or worrying
about serious things for six days, to work or worry about trifling things at
the weekend.
As for the unfortunate people who can command
everything they want, who can gratify every caprice and lay their hands on
almost every object of desire for them a new pleasure, a new excitement is only
an additional satiation. In vain they rush frantically round from place to
place, trying to escape from avenging boredom by mere clatter and motion. For
them discipline in one form or another is the most hopeful path.
It may also be said that national, industrious, useful
human beings are divided into two classes: first, those whose work is work and
whose pleasure is pleasure; and second, those whose work and pleasure are one.
Of those the former are the majority. They have their compensations. The long
hours in the office or the factory bring with them as their reward not only the
means of sustenance, but a keen appetite for pleasure even in its simplest and
most modest forms. But fortune’s favoured children belong to the second class.
Their life is a natural harmony. For them the working hours are never long
enough. Each day is a holiday, and ordinary holidays when they come are grudged
as enforced interruptions in an absorbing vocation. Yet to both classes the
need of an alternative outlook, of a change of atmosphere of a diversion of
effort, is essential. Indeed, it may well be that those whose work is their
pleasure are those who most need the means of banishing it at intervals from
their minds.
By
Eguriase S. M. Okaka
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