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Every Man's Got to Have a Hobby
August 29, 2003, 11:36 p.m. Something that a few people have said to me – that they feel they don’t know me. I’m baffled by these accusations . . . yeah, they feel like accusations. People think I’m not giving up the information, that I’m hiding something, some part of me. But I don’t feel like that – I don’t know what else I have to reveal to them. I always considered myself a fairly honest, forth-right and up-front person . . . Maybe people expect to find a deep, dark secret, but I don’t have one to give, so they assume I must be hiding something. I don’t know. Maybe it’s the fact that I can never answer the questions like “what’re your hobbies?” and “what kind of music do you like?” or “what do you want to be when you grow up?” I don’t know what I want to be, that’s why I’m doing an Arts degree; I like all kinds of music, I couldn’t pick out a genre, cause I hear a song and I either like it or I don’t, regardless of who sang it or wrote it. The hobbies question is the most perplexing – I simply don’t do anything that could constitute a hobby. It makes me feel like a very boring person. I have passions, but I’m a bit fickle about them. That’s why I like doing an Arts degree – I can jump to a new set of passions every semester : ) I like to write, and my Rapunzel story is nearing completion (she’s met her prince), but I haven’t been doing much of that lately. My biggest passion would have to be people – I love people and their personalities and their stories. I used to say I collected world views. But that’s not really a hobby – or at least, you don’t exactly have anything to show for it at the end, like with collecting stamps or building miniature trains. Unless you’re some sort of freaky stalker, and have surveillance pictures of your target all over your living room wall. People ask me, what do you do for fun? And I have to say – I hang out with my friends. I don’t have to be doing anything special with them, just sitting around with something decadent to eat and talking is special enough for me. People are the most important thing in my life. You know, I always thought I was above the whole succeed-or-die mentality of western society . . . I don’t really care if I never get a high-profile job that pays a six-figure salary – I’d be happy to work in a bookshop for the rest of my days. As long as I had someone besides a fluffy yuppy puppy to come home to at night (I’d never be a cat woman). But you know, I really don’t like to fail. I can’t stand to see myself be unable to do something that I think I should be able to do. I think I should be able to get great marks at uni, maintain excellent personal relationships and lead an exemplary life. So when I don’t, I feel awful. It’s easy to say when and how you’ve failed at academics, but with personal relationships and just life in general, you can’t just pick out the flaws to your plan of attack and say “I won’t do that next time.” Sometimes you can, but other times, you’re just left wondering what went wrong, and if there’s anything you can possibly do to rectify the situation. And it’s not really like you’re succeeding at life and relationships if you have to have a plan of attack either. You know, this is probably why I’m twenty (or at least will be in two days) and still don’t know how to drive. I’m probably afraid of failure. There’s also the issue of me being a lazy-arsed sod : )
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