The Things We Do on the Side
On hobbies, and the quiet preservation of an open mind
We tend to think of creativity as a verb. Writing. Making. Publishing. Performing. Something visible, measurable - evidence that the mind is alive and working.
But what happens between those acts of expression? Where does creativity go when you’re not using it?
Maybe it doesn’t go anywhere. Maybe it just needs somewhere to rest and catch its breath.
Hobbies get a bad reputation. We call them distractions, guilty pleasures, things we do “on the side” - as if they’re stealing time from something more serious.
But I think about them differently: as environments where creativity can rest without being asked to perform.
A jigsaw puzzle. A crossword. A long walk with no destination. Reading something you’ll never write about. The slow rhythm of knitting or gardening or a game with rules you didn’t invent.
These activities absorb your attention without demanding anything in return. Pattern without pressure. Repetition without judgement.
They’re not creative acts in themselves; they’re creative conditions.
Some things generate creativity: a striking sentence; an overheard conversation; a line in a film that lodges itself somewhere and won’t leave. These are sources of creativity - raw material that might, eventually, become something.
Hobbies, on the other hand, don’t work like that. They don’t supply material. They’re not feeding the well.
What they do is keep the well from drying up.
Creativity doesn’t disappear when you’re not expressing it. But it can stiffen and narrow. Left too long without gentle use, the mind loses its range of motion and starts closing down, settling into familiar grooves.
Hobbies prevent that closure by keeping the creative pathways open. Preserving a kind of mental flexibility that writing alone can’t maintain.
There’s a temptation (isn’t there always?) to justify all this. To frame hobbies as self-improvement, cognitive health, productivity hacks in disguise.
But I think that’s exactly what robs them of their value.
A hobby that goes nowhere is doing essential work - precisely because it asks for nothing. Some things work best when they’re allowed to be pointless. The moment you optimise a hobby, you’ve turned it into something else.
Not everything needs to earn its place. Some things belong ‘on the side’.
Whatever you do when you’re not trying to be creative: the games, the puzzles, the aimless reading - it might be doing more than you think.
Maybe that’s what hobbies really are: not the opposite of creativity, but its maintenance.
A way of staying open when you have nothing to say.