I make no apologies for writing this column on a subject that has nothing to do with gypsum, insulation or any other building material: Occasionally, I do go ‘off-topic.’ Sometimes, it’s useful to stand back so that you can see the bigger picture. In fact, we should probably all do it more often.
My question is, ‘Why do we do the things that we do?’ This question came forcibly to my mind one Saturday afternoon in January this year. I was about 5km into the South of England Cross Country Championships, which took place on a hilly and very muddy course. About 1500 men were in the race (the ladies had run earlier), and I was about two thirds of the way down the field. I was surrounded by many other middle-aged men, all in running vests with their club names on. Some were tall, some were short, some were carrying a little too much weight, some were whippet-skinny but most of us were well past our best. We were all struggling, especially up the hills, with laboured and heavy breathing. The temperature was about 2°C and it was raining, hard. We were literally soaked through. It was not just uncomfortable, it was physically painful. At one point in the race, just at the start of yet another hill, I actually asked aloud “Remind me, why are we doing this?” Various answers came from the struggling runners beside me, including ‘Stupidity,’ ‘To get out of the house,’ ‘To keep fit and to stay young’ and ‘To feel alive.’
At the end of the race, having narrowly beaten my oldest running foe/friend, I washed the worst of the mud off my legs in a huge muddy puddle that had formed near the finish line, while the rain came down in torrents. My hands were so cold that they had formed into immobile claws, which took ten minutes to warm back into life. I walked back to my car with some friends, into the cold darkening evening, for the long drive home.
As you can tell, perhaps, I loved the whole thing.
Since that time, I’ve been out running many times, but none was quite as awful or as memorable as that strength-sapping cross country run. My wife Sally thinks that I am mad, and frequently tells me that ‘Any fool can be uncomfortable.” As always, she is correct.
Of course, running up and down hills in the freezing rain is not the only option for a hobby. Undoubtedly, our readers will include those that might indulge in one or more of the following: Astronomy, auto-racing, badminton, baking, baseball, basketball, beekeeping, billiards, bird-watching, bodybuilding, breakdancing, camping, chess, climbing, cooking, cosplaying, cycling, dancing, do-it-yourself, drawing, drinking, driving, eating, embroidery, figure skating, fishing, foraging, gardening, golfing, gongoozling, herping, hiking, homebrewing, horse-riding, hunting, ice skating, juggling, kabaddi, kitesurfing, lego-building, letterboxing, listening to music, magic, metal detecting, model-building, mountaineering, netball, orienteering, photography, power-boating, quilting, reading, record collecting, rock-climbing, rugby, sailing, sketching, skiing, surfing, swimming, taxidermy, trainspotting, travel, triathlon, Ultimate frisbee, video gaming, watching television, wrestling, writing, yoga and (because there is no hobby starting with ‘x’) 3D printing. Plenty of other hobbies are available, of course. Hundreds in fact.1
I think that all of these hobbies have two things in common: firstly, they are ‘pass-times,’ in that they pass the time between when the sun comes up and its setting (or more likely, the end of work and bed-time). If you have no pass-time, then perhaps the thing to do is to sit still and do nothing. However, humans are generally not good at doing nothing. In fact, back in 1654, scientist and philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote that ‘All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.’ So bad are we, that it has been found that people will willingly give themselves an electric shock, rather than sitting still and just thinking.2 Secondly, hobbies often provide ‘flow.’ This is the state of complete concentration on something that makes you forget the passing of time, and often leads to feelings of happiness or even of bliss. It’s also known as ‘being in the zone.’ Hopefully, you have experienced this pleasant feeling. Who knows, you may even have experienced this feeling at work, if you are lucky.
When I look deep into my own heart, I find that I had the same reasons as all those other middle-aged men, plodding on through the mud: to do something interesting with the time between cradle and grave, to try to extend the time that we have left to us, and to disperse the fug of everyday life. As the freezing rain stung my cheeks and I ran as fast as I was physically able, with heart, lungs and legs burning from the strain, at the very least I felt really alive.
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hobbies
2 https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-07-19/new-study-found-people-are-terrible-sitting-alone-their-thoughts-how-about-you
