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

I think you're right B, about women displaying a different type of autism to many men.

I do have knowlege of cooking, plants etc, but then I've been doing these things since I was a child in the case of cooking and many of the others since being a teenager, so what you see is the accumilation of about 50 year of knowlege. I'm lucky having a retentive memory for some things, often useless pieces of information, that only benefit me when doing quizzes.

I've met a few photographers and they will all spend hours, lying on the ground to get the perfect shot.

One of the things I do wonder about special interests though, is the role that gender could play? Is it more socially acceptable for boys and men to have a serious hobby than women and are those hobbies/interests gendered too? Is it more acceptable for a woman to bake and decorate cakes for a hobby/interest than do something that involved being outside and getting dirty? Cakes and similar things can be shared, where as other interests maybe can't in the same way with people in general.

Then theres the issue of resourses, how much spending power does each gender have to persue their interests? Most men I know will spend and think nothing of spending hundreds on their interest, whereas women tend to spend pocket money amounts. Theres also time too, men seem to get away with spending lots of time on thier interests whereas women tend to have other, maybe family orrientated things they "have" to do.

I think you're right B, about women displaying a different type of autism to many men.

I do have knowlege of cooking, plants etc, but then I've been doing these things since I was a child in the case of cooking and many of the others since being a teenager, so what you see is the accumilation of about 50 year of knowlege. I'm lucky having a retentive memory for some things, often useless pieces of information, that only benefit me when doing quizzes.

I've met a few photographers and they will all spend hours, lying on the ground to get the perfect shot.

One of the things I do wonder about special interests though, is the role that gender could play? Is it more socially acceptable for boys and men to have a serious hobby than women and are those hobbies/interests gendered too? Is it more acceptable for a woman to bake and decorate cakes for a hobby/interest than do something that involved being outside and getting dirty? Cakes and similar things can be shared, where as other interests maybe can't in the same way with people in general.

Then theres the issue of resourses, how much spending power does each gender have to persue their interests? Most men I know will spend and think nothing of spending hundreds on their interest, whereas women tend to spend pocket money amounts. Theres also time too, men seem to get away with spending lots of time on thier interests whereas women tend to have other, maybe family orrientated things they "have" to do.