Nov. 2020; get it out

“If you’re good at something, never do it for free.” No prizes for guessing who said that, and in which movie. As fas back as I can remember, I’ve always been absolutely fascinated with movies. Not just watching attractive people act out a story, but the process, the titles, the cinematography, the colour tones and music soundtrack chosen, the protagonists struggle against their own personal demons and more more more. I feel like the movie itself is just the small end product, but it’s the tens of thousands of hours that go into delivering that end product that I find just as interesting. There’s some movies I’ve watched 20, 30 times, more, and each time I watch them I get something extra back from them, learn a little more about the character or the setting or the directors choice for whichever decision in the plot.

When I was a kid I was pretty withdrawn, I had a small circle of friends and I was often alone, mostly by my own choice. This was before the time of dvd players or internet to watch films, and so over the years I submersed myself into books, starting with a few of the classics like Of Mice and Men, Call of the Wild, Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird and so forth, on to more adult content like the insanely enjoyable a Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, George Orwell, horror novels by Stephen King and Sean Hutson, to name but a few. I would take my novels to school and hide them in my text books, reading them during class instead of paying attention to schoolwork. Too often I used to skip school, usually I’d turn up for morning registration and then disappear on my bike to somewhere quiet I wouldn’t get caught and read for a few hours. Over the years I’ve taught a few things to others, back in London I taught music and the fundamentals of cocktail bartending, and here in Shenzhen I’ve taught English and photography (lessons available upon request.) ;) And I’ve been kindly told I’m a pretty alright teacher, but trust me on this one, I was (and still am) a horrible student.

I’ve always had a very firm belief that if you don’t want to learn something, you shouldn’t. Of course sometimes we all have to learn some stuff we’re not keen on, how to use excel or how to drive a car or how to stop yourself from punching people who eat with their mouths open. But in my mind if you’re not enjoying the subject or the process of learning, you should just forget about it and find something else you do want to learn. Learning something you don’t enjoy is like an ongoing trip to the dentists. Now, hobbies are a different thing entirely. Kind of. Many of us choose our hobbies purely because we enjoy them, we get something from them. We play badminton to keep fit and have a good laugh with our friends who also do it. We go to the gym to look hot in a bikini and check out the other sexy gym bodies in their tight, skimpy clothes. We do photography to have an artistic excuse to take photos of girls in their underwear. (Those interested please message me.) So for many of us, learning isn’t exactly what we’d call fun, but hobbies are.

*Side note; Now before we move on, let’s just take a quick look at the main hobbies people tell me they enjoy here, and if you’re guilty of these answers, now it might be a good time to switch it up a little and think of a few fresh replies next time you’re asked. So, when I ask people “what hobbies do you have?” let’s go over the most often heard;

1. Sleeping. Yes, oh my lord, some people say they enjoy sleeping more than any other pastime. In my mind I can only think of 2 reasons why they might say this, either A) they are the most physically overworked human on earth, or they are possibly the most physically weak human on earth, or the most physically ugly human on earth (get that beauty sleep), or B) they are the most boring human being on the face of the planet. You have a day off, 24 hours to do anything your heart desires (within legal/monetary reason) and your choice is to curl up in your dirty pyjamas and dribble while you snore. Wow. Sleeping is not a hobby, it’s a necessity.

2. Eating. Here we go. Someone please explain to me how eating can be a hobby. Cooking, absolutely. Dinner parties, yes, growing fruit or vegetables, yes, studying world cuisine, yes, taking part in chilli eating contests or even reading bloody cookery books, yes! But just stuffing your face like a famished cow and posting the photos on wechat is not a hobby. Some people have now latched on to the expression “foodie.” “I’m a foodie.” Oh, so tell me, you take time to learn about different ingredients and their values and benefits, you test yourself with your chef skills and growing personal knowledge of a myriad of dishes from the worlds different continents and cultures? “Uh, no. I like to eat.” That’s not a foodie, that’s a pig. Eating is not a hobby, it’s a necessity.

3. Watching movies. Now if this were true I couldn’t possibly take a poke at it, but it’s mostly not true. If people were taking in the directorial masterpieces of Kubrick, Hitchcock or even Scorsese, studying their artistic complexities and twists and turns of story, then I would tip my hat to you and admire from afar. But no. Most people are watching badly acted idiotic period dramas, historical romance stories with no sex, or blindly one sided war series how “my country brave and good/all other countries weak and stupid.” But I get it, our brains do need to switch off, and this mundane dishwater excuse for viewing is good at making you not think. At all. I guess this is a hobby, but if you watch this mediocre slop then either you are a simpleton, or you’re trying your best to become one.

The next time somebody asks you about your hobbies, please try to think of something a bit more interesting. Travel. Knitting. Throwing stones at small children. But please, no more sleeping, eating, watch movies.

Now it really wasn’t until the last few years that my love of reading as a kid has benefited me. I knew it helped my young mind to form a deep imagination, but I never really knew just how much you learn from reading novels. China is definitely a place of readers, I admire that. There are book stores dotted all around, and the phone zombies with their faces glued to a screen are often reading stuff (when they aren’t playing video games or killing their remaining intelligence with DouYin videos.) But very rarely do I see a person reading a novel. Go to the book stores and there’s thousands upon thousands of self help books, how to be a stronger manager, how to persuade people and make a million in sales, how to program code. People clearly understand the value of learning, investing in yourself, but when I’ve asked people about reading novels the most usual reply is “I’ll watch the movie.” Now this puzzles me. Is it because of the time invested and attention span it takes to read fiction? Is it an underdeveloped imagination that can’t pad out the story and characters in their own mind? Is it simple laziness, or possibly the fact that we now (very unfortunately) live in an era of instant gratification, instant everything. And some people just pass off fiction as a bit silly, a waste of time. But to me, reading fiction can develop our minds and even our intelligence in so many ways. Just sitting on the sofa for a few hours we can learn about Pharaohs and Empresses, adventurers and pirates, detectives and doctors and so much more, cultures from around the world, the past and the future, different social backgrounds and how different people express themselves in unfamiliar ways. It builds our language skills and opens our minds to new concepts, ideas, chains of thought. A reader lives a thousand lives before they die. The person who never reads lives only one.

If you’re reading this, then you know one of my pastimes is writing (and I salute and admire your choice of material.) I liked writing when I was younger, but I never thought much about it. Over the years I haven’t had many hobbies I guess, mostly because I’m not actually very good at many things. But now I find writing this silly blog has really helped me in several different ways. One thing is that it’s helped expand my seriously depleted vocabulary. It may sound weird but it’s true, living in another country for a while and not having so many conversations in your own language can make you forget words. Language is just another skill, and like most skills, if you don’t exercise it often enough it can get worse. Sometimes I forget spellings of words I haven’t wrote for a while. A few months ago a friend asked me how to spell unnecessarily, and I was like “U-N-N-N-E-S-E-S-S…” Writing this is even slightly helping my terrible grammar, but I’m still working on that. Mostly the way this blog has helped is that I’ve found a way to express myself, my thoughts and opinions (and that’s all this really is) and get it off my chest. It really doesn’t matter if 100 people read it or nobody does, I write it for the experience of writing it. With writing, with photography, with anything, I think you should only do these things for yourself, your own satisfaction and enjoyment. Write what you like, take photos of what you like. Don’t try to please others too hard. If you’re doing something you like, and you like what you are producing, then you’re successful. This written stuff is never gonna win any awards and my photos are never going to win any prizes, but that’s really not the point of creating them. As with many things in life, it’s not the destination, but the journey. It’s not the final movie, it’s the production.

So do we all need a hobby? Well, I’d say we all need an outlet. We need a way to completely forget about work and family and all the other crap floating around inside our heads. Taking on some kind of project or task can be so incredibly fulfilling, even if it’s something small like growing herbs on your balcony or building an Ikea table. From conception, the initial idea, to seeing things through to completion, can give you a wonderful sense of achievement. Not all people are creative, and that’s absolutely fine. Not all people are sporty, not all people are academic, but find out what you are, what you do like or might possibly like, and find the time for yourself. An excuse we like to tell ourselves is that “we don’t have time.” When it comes to work stuff, family stuff, if it’s important we find the time, we make the time. We prioritize others and other “stuff” over ourselves. Some times you have to think about number 1. The old saying goes “healthy body, healthy mind.” How about healthy mind, healthy body? Many of us underestimate the importance of keeping a balanced headspace, taking the time to just think, work things out inside us. Let things go that might have been slowly eating us up for something truly insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I’m very happy to see the growing popularity of meditation and yoga in China, I’m sure this is a fantastic way to clear your mind and establish some inner equilibrium. I find writing this blog is my personal outlet.

Also from the feedback I’ve received I know this silly blog does actually benefit some others too. Some people use it to practice English and that’s fine, I’m glad it helps. Some people have told me they feel the same way as I’ve wrote but couldn’t figure out a way to express their feeling and emotions, and that’s great to hear too. Learning ways to express yourself is a very healthy skill, I wish the education system would understand this and take it more seriously for our schools and universities. And although this is only just my silly thoughts and opinions, some people say they actually learn from it too. This is the highest compliment to me. If somebody takes the time to read these few paragraphs and reflect upon it a little, it’s well worth the time it takes me to write it.

This weeks Sunday scribble has no real course or direction, it’s just a ramble, me thinking out loud. Go read a book. Hell, maybe go write a book. Sometimes I grab hold of a subject and try my best to detail my thoughts about it, and sometimes I just write stuff down, just to get it out. If this weeks article has any message to it at all I guess it’s just that; find a way to get stuff out. I’ve met so many people dealing with stress and confusion, insane amounts of pressure, overworked and underpaid, family issues, husband, wife, kids, no husband, no wife, no kids…the list never ends. Finding your own way of getting it out is unquestionably helpful, I promise you. Clear your head. Maybe go to the gym and punch the bag for an hour. Maybe strip naked and paint a self portrait. Maybe learn ballet. Maybe go flirt with a stranger in a cafe, whatever works for you. But do yourself a favour. Express yourself. Get it out.