Why don't people pursue their hobbies, instead of working?

"What are your two top hobbies, Dr. Khé?" asked a student, "D," as he was waiting for another faculty.

Hobbies? 

I am one who often comments to anybody who wants to know that my work is my hobby, and my hobby is my work.  I even add that I would do my work even if I didn't get paid, though it certainly does seem so sometimes :) 

In fact, Wikipedia notes that "hobbies are practiced for interest and enjoyment, rather than financial reward," which all the more convinces me that my work is a hobby because I am not in it for any financial rewards!

"My work is my first hobby" I replied.

"So, what is your second one?"

I thought for a while.  "Cooking."

"D" chuckled and quizzically looked at me.  "Cocaine?"

My accent garbled up cooking into cocaine.  One more to my list of stories to tell :)

Anyway, isn't life weird that apparently there are things we would do in life purely for enjoyment and out of our innate interests, and yet we do not engage with them full-time.  Instead, we take on "jobs" and secretly dream about the hobbies.  We drive around with bumper stickers that profess our hobbies, like "I would rather be fishing." 

Why have we become so focused on living a life where we pursue activities that do not really interest us at all?  To quite some extent, we are all living a split-life only because we think that our hobbies will not get us enough money to pay for the giant size flat screen TV?  If fishing is one's enjoyment, then what prevents that person from simply living a life by the river or lake or sea?  Because of the fear of being tagged a bum? A loser?  But then what about the tremendous opportunity cost, so to say, of the phenomenal enjoyment that was given up by stating locked up at work for hours day after day, week after week, year after year?

I would have thought that getting away from feudal conditions would have led humans to liberation to such an extent that we would not be chained by our economic conditions.  But, here we are.

Even as I blog away, I am reminded of a column from a few years ago; turns out my brain is functional!  In that column, Steven Landsburg wrote about the increasing inequality of leisure time:

By and large, the biggest leisure gains have gone precisely to those with the most stagnant incomes—that is, the least skilled and the least educated. And conversely, the smallest leisure gains have been concentrated among the most educated, the same group that's had the biggest gains in income....

First, man does not live by bread alone. Our happiness depends partly on our incomes, but also on the time we spend with our friends, our hobbies, and our favorite TV shows. So, it's a good exercise in perspective to remember that by and large, the big winners in the income derby have been the small winners in the leisure derby, and vice versa.

Second, a certain class of pundits and politicians are quick to see any increase in income inequality as a problem that needs fixing—usually through some form of redistributive taxation. Applying the same philosophy to leisure, you could conclude that something must be done to reverse the trends of the past 40 years—say, by rounding up all those folks with extra time on their hands and putting them to (unpaid) work in the kitchens of their "less fortunate" neighbors.

If only people would care less about money and simply enjoy pursuing whatever they want to do.  But then, humans we are! 

I often share with students the following joke that I heard for the first time back in graduate school:

A World Bank poverty expert goes to Bangladesh and finds a poor thirty-something man simply lying under a few trees during a mid-afternoon. 

"Why don't you work?" he asks.

"What for?"

"You can earn more money"

"Ok, what will I do with the money?"

"You can send your children to good colleges"

"Sounds good.  But, after that?"

"You can retire and travel to different places"

"That sounds exciting.  But, what will I do after that?"

"You can say you have had a great life, and simply lie down by a lake and enjoy it all."

The Bangladeshi is confused now.  "But, that is what I am doing even now!"

Oh well .... BTW, I did cook earlier today--tried out a new recipe.  Of course, my own concoction, and I have survived to write about it :)