#1 - Building a complex identity through hobbies

Hi, and welcome to the first issue of Ideothetic Flow!

Thank you for supporting me by subscribing to this. I never thought of myself as the kind who would work on such a public project, and I am still exceedingly nervous about actually doing this. However, seeing my closest friends subscribe so quickly has also renewed my enthusiasm to get this done right. I do hope all of you find this useful to your own lives. Please also tell me any feedback or comments you may have, I treasure all of your opinions dearly, so do not feel like you have to hold back.

Here is the first thing I have to share, which made me think more about self-identity, and its relationship between work and hobbies. Enjoy!

Why hobbies make you happy, Susie Nielson - The Cut

This article observes how American society is biased towards seeing work as the largest or only part of a person's self-identity. It explains the importance of self-complexity, the risk of relying only one aspect of the self as our identity, and suggests finding a hobby to try to achieve a complex identity.

"For instance, Linville writes, consider a woman who thinks about her life mainly in terms of her career and her relationship to her husband. If her husband says something dismissive, half of her “self” takes a hit. If her boss issues her a harsh reprimand, again, that’s an attack on 50 percent of her identity."

I agree that a complex self-identity has benefits, and that society tends to zoom in only on work as each person's identity. However, it is not as simple as "finding a hobby" and picking up whatever is popular at the moment or which would impress others. For this complex identity to be resilient, the hobbies we pursue must be one which we instinctively know to be something we are passionate about (which, for some lucky few, happen to also be their careers).

With work already taking up so much of everyone's life, I should do my part and not perpetuate this impression that a person's career is their only valuable identity. When I meet someone new, I often, by default, ask them "what do you do?". I want to actively shift from this to learn more about a person besides their career (Here is a list of things i could possible ask instead).

Hope you have a great week ahead!

James.