WHEN OUR HOBBIES TURN INTO OUR PROFESSIONS

Pic.: Jhuma Mukherjee

“The most expensive hobby a rich man could have

is a boat,

and the second most expensive hobby he could have

is a very old house.”

- Barbara Corcoran

Life without our hobbies would have been very boring for each one of us. And, I think, when our hobbies turn into our professions, life would be a blessed one!

The question that comes up here is: If our hobbies become our professions, won’t life, soon, become boring and dull? After all, hobbies are those activities which are not inspired by any need to earn or gain, any compulsion or force... So, won’t our professions, eventually, turn into the same old run-of-the-mill drudgeries?

The answer can be both ‘Yes’ and ‘No’.

‘Yes’ because, many of us do turn our hobbies into our professions... and, soon, get lured by the money, fame and power that come along. Then, what remains in our profession are the hardcore, and hard-nosed business and negotiation, shrewd maneuver of survival and accumulation... and that glorious something – where it all had started – will all go into a thick smoke. Hobbies get dead and buried... RIP!

We just need to look around and check how true it is...

And, ‘No’ because, with many of us, the hobbies still stay alive and breathe the same old air into our professions...

Why so?

Obviously, we did not get lured by the glamour and clamor of making it big and proving how big it can be – yes, by way of the money we make, the fame we earn and the power we wield...

When we started off to sketch our drawings, strum our guitars or hum our songs... when we scribbled our innocent poems or designed our tiny castles, when we baked those  cakes or ran those cross-country races, when we taught someone those lessons or debated from those podiums... yes, when it all started, long time ago, we did it on our own, without being told, without caring for the money, fame or power which those very activities might potentially bring to us, one day... we never worried about our hunger and time, never craved for any loud cheering, leave  alone immortality...

We pursued our hobbies, because, they made us very, very happy, centered and fulfilled.... That’s all...

So, today, when some of us have turned our hobbies into our professions, are we still alive to our innate source of happiness? Are we still doing them as little children? Are we still looking small, as small as a little kid looks standing before a mountain or ocean? Have money and fame hijacked the kid... the sense of wonder and smallness?

If not... yes, if not, I have the reason to believe, that, when our hobbies turn into our professions, life would be a blessed one...

Now, when I bog daily... yes daily, am I aware of this truth?

For last forty years or so, I have been scribbling my notes...

For equal number of years, I have been teaching, too...

Where do I stand, today – at the foot of the mountain or on top of it? On the sands of the ocean or on the crest of its giant waves?

Just felt like looking around my soul and checking...

GERALD D’CUNHA