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Arun Ram's avatar

Well articulated article on hobbies. One thing i lost over time is cracking awfully blunt jokes. Work made me super serious about everything. Now i have a super serious face like Anime with lot of lines in it. This quote resonated well: “I refuse to turn my free time into another KPI.”

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The Nook's avatar

Nothing should ever come in the way of cracking awfully blunt or bluntly awful jokes, not even life! ❣️Thanks for reading, mate!

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Sunil Bhandari's avatar

The sheer joy of reading this, OMG! Thank you! You are my E Gilbert :)

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The Nook's avatar

Such a huge compliment, Señor. Muchos gracias!

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Forum's avatar

This is such a great piece, love it so so much! I've been meaning to start a substack account and was thinking of the why behind it, and realised that I want it simply as a place for my thoughts to exist other than my head and journal. I don't need a strong WHY, just wanting to do it is enough. This felt like a little encouraging nudge

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The Nook's avatar

This is beautiful. Do share the link to the newsletter here, once it's out in the world. :)

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Lenina's avatar

Not sure if it’s just about getting older or a symptom of our disconnected and outcome orientated world. I have seen children with calendars that are fuller than mine, because there parents want them to follow any “hobby” possible: learning an instrument, doing sports, leaning a language, riding the horse, dancing, yoga, painting… the list is never ending

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The Nook's avatar

yes, pinching the heart of a hobby to death is probably the only thing worse than not having a hobby...

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Lee Archer  |  Nottingham Arts's avatar

I started song realism drawing a number of years ago - portraits mostly. People came out of nowhere asking g me to do commissions which was awesome! After a few years though, I decided to move away from commissions because they had stopped being fun. It had turned into a job. Now I draw just to draw and it makes me happy.

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The Nook's avatar

how beautiful it is to find our way back to joy, isn't it?! More play to you!

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Tisha Mus's avatar

I am glad I stumbled upon this piece! I could resonate to it!! My latest post is also on how hobbies are so important for an individual and we shouldn't be expecting anything back from our hobbies. :)

Also, when you mentioned Elizabeth Gilbert, I was surprised!! I am obsessed with her book Big Magic ✨ and then you mentioned, The Power of Now... I learned a lot from that book.. 🙌

We should definitely connect :D

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The Nook's avatar

We should, we should! Since you liked these two books, here are a few others I have enjoyed that speak about the topic of creativity: Rick Rubin's The Creative Way and The Art of Noticing by Rob Walker. Have you read these?

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Tisha Mus's avatar

I haven't read those yet, but adding them to my list now.. thank you!

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Ap's avatar

Thankyou for this article !!

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The Nook's avatar

Thank you for reading ❣️

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Manas Mallik's avatar

I was reading this on my gmail. The irony is Gemini offered to summarise this for me.

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The Nook's avatar

Hahaha! Wonder how Gemini would read between the lines or pauses!

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