What is a hobby and whats essential to life?

With regard to reading it's something I do for several hours every day and have done so since childhood.

I don't watch TV, listen to music or the radio so it's no more a hobby for me than people watching TV is.  Passtime?

I see a hobby as something you do from time to time and you get great enjoyment from - it can be all sorts of things but often is practical.

Then there are 'special' interests which can be very absorbing - photography is something I'd put into that bracket (for me).

I think actually it's quite individual as a thing can mean something very different from one person to another.

'Essential' is a difficult word as if you were locked away somewhere without your books, would you survive?

If so, it's not essential for living but maybe essential for contentment (as it is with me).

I have a problem with the term "passtime", it's so belittling and suggests that the things you do that give your life meaning aren't important or have any value.

To get back to what I was saying after nearly being bumped off by the dreaded orange banner making me have to sign in again.

I might physically survive, but whether I would come out sane from a book free period is doubtful, like you I've read since I was a child. 

I do watch telly, but not as much as some and different stuff to most on here, I don't listen to radio as DJ's annoy me to the point of defenestrating the radio and I no longer listen to music due to lack of suitable listening time and more importantly uninterupted listening time.

I wonder if the thing about a hobby not being a hobby when you make money from it, is more about a warped sort of Protestant Work Ethic, where you must not enjoy yourself, especially at work, because work is some mad kind of punishment?

When a hobby is part of a coping mechanism, I think it's still a hobby, I don't see there being anything wrong with having or using a hobby to stablise your mental or physicla health.

I don't have a special interest so I can' treally comment on them

TheCatWoman said:

I don't have a special interest so I can' treally comment on them

I haven't read a great deal about autism because I tend to find factual reading hard.

However, I have learnt that we women don't fit into the archetypical 'special' interest that men might and in particular, bearing in mind our age, the sort of 'special' interests that boys who would once have been diagnosed with autism might have eg. a lifelong interest in trains.

We tend to move from one interest to another and also they can tend to be more usual.

I've picked up from here that you have a great interest and knowledge of several things eg. archaeology, nutrition, cooking, herbalism, gardening, paganism.

I think that some might see these as 'special' interests.

When I was diagnosed although I expected the question, I found it really hard to find a 'special' interest but then I realised that some things I've done for many years eg. photography, could be classed as such.

I didn't even mention reading in my assessment.

Maybe 'normal' people wouldn't spend all morning lying on the ground trying to photograph bees and then days trying to identify them.

I think that late diagnosed females in particular probably need to do some unpicking of themselves to understand where we fit into the diagnostic criteria.

TheCatWoman said:

I don't have a special interest so I can' treally comment on them

I haven't read a great deal about autism because I tend to find factual reading hard.

However, I have learnt that we women don't fit into the archetypical 'special' interest that men might and in particular, bearing in mind our age, the sort of 'special' interests that boys who would once have been diagnosed with autism might have eg. a lifelong interest in trains.

We tend to move from one interest to another and also they can tend to be more usual.

I've picked up from here that you have a great interest and knowledge of several things eg. archaeology, nutrition, cooking, herbalism, gardening, paganism.

I think that some might see these as 'special' interests.

When I was diagnosed although I expected the question, I found it really hard to find a 'special' interest but then I realised that some things I've done for many years eg. photography, could be classed as such.

I didn't even mention reading in my assessment.

Maybe 'normal' people wouldn't spend all morning lying on the ground trying to photograph bees and then days trying to identify them.

I think that late diagnosed females in particular probably need to do some unpicking of themselves to understand where we fit into the diagnostic criteria.