Do the dorky thing!

Weather: 36C, still way too hot, but I’m starting to get used to always being drenched in sweat.

embarassing = true, honest life

In “Four Thousand Weeks” Oliver Burkeman writes about hobbies at one point. Hobbies are activities we do for no other purpose than the enjoyment of the activity itself. Most hobbies are also considered somewhat uncool, like collecting stamps, building models or painting bad paintings. Burkeman suggests that these hobbies might seem a bit lame because we’re living in a world where only things done “for a purpose” are valuable. Running to train for a marathon, pottery to eventually sell pots on Etsy, reading to feel and seem more well read, etc. Therefore a cool hobby can’t be entirely a true hobby, its coolnes suggests it has some status or social purpose, and as it has purpose, it’s not truly a thing to do for fun, at least a little bit of it is work-like.

Based on this logic, if one wants to fill their life with things that are enjoyabel and valuable in their own, without a future goal or profit, one should do slightly dorky things.

I find this logic fits well into my current life. “Do what’s dorky, pick what’s dorky” is a good guide to a life more enjoyed just because that’s what a life is for. When I pick a new car (which I’ll need to do soon), I can follow this advice and pick a car that fits my specific needs and is a little dorky. This helps make sure that I buy what I actually need, because there’s no status involved, no cool factor to push me to something more expensive that I don’t actually need.

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I like the idea of becoming a slightly uncool person. When people look at me weird or ask “is that really your car?” or “is that what you always wear?” or “huh, don’t you feel weird doing that?” I can smile to myself and feel a little bit accomplished. Weird things show that I’m not following a social script, sometimes I pick to satisfy myself, to follow my heart.