buttondown-com-jpzwsx.txt (6680B)
1 Mike Monteiro’s Good News logo 2 [1] Mike Monteiro’s Good News [2] 3 Subscribe 4 [3] 5 RSS 6 [4] 7 Archive 8 September 11, 2024 9 10 How many hobbies is too many? 11 12 [5]Two identical paintings. Each painting is two panels. The top panels is a 13 black and white word balloon that says GENOCIDE IS PAINLESS. The bottom panel 14 is a anthropomorphized slice of watermelon.Couple little paintings I did this 15 week for reasons. 16 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 17 18 This week’s question comes to us from Gord Fynes: 19 20 How many hobbies is too many? There's only so many hours in the day, days in 21 the week, etc. 22 23 One. One hobby is too many. 24 25 I hate hobbies. Rather, I hate calling things hobbies. The word hobby is almost 26 always used apologetically. It carries a certain amount of shame, an element of 27 wasted time, or at least time not well-spent, certainly time spent not 28 “earning.” And therein lies the problem. 29 30 Let’s get personal. When I was a kid, my father “earned” by doing construction 31 work. He’d leave early in the morning and come home caked in cement from laying 32 foundations. He was not a happy person to be around. He hated his job and he 33 took it out on his family. After dinner, which was never pleasant, he would 34 either disappear out the door or disappear into the basement. 35 36 The basement was off limits to us. It’s where he painted. Years later, I got 37 brave enough to go door there. Behind a curtained-off area, I found a workbench 38 full of intricately painted tiles, always in blue. I found coffee cans full of 39 brushes, some of them carefully handmade. And I found family photographs taped 40 to the wall. All of this was new to me, and I couldn’t understand why someone 41 who was always so full of rage towards me would have my school photo taped to 42 the wall above his workbench. In some ways I still don’t. 43 44 As years passed, his secret became less of a secret. He’d occasionally bring a 45 tile up and hang it in the kitchen. Eventually, I’d learn the tiles were called 46 azulejos. Eventually, I’d learn that he was a trained azulejo painter in his 47 native Portugal, and well-regarded for it. Then he immigrated to the United 48 States where he laid cement to earn for his family. And I wondered what he 49 would’ve been like if he could’ve spent his life doing what he loved. 50 Selfishly, I wondered what my life would’ve been like if he could’ve spent his 51 life doing what he loved. 52 53 As more years passed, my father realized I had some form of artistic talent and 54 I was allowed behind the curtain, especially if he needed lettering. He sucked 55 at lettering. 56 57 When I decided I wanted to go to art school, my mother objected, but my father 58 did not. And while this did not make up for years of abuse, it was nonetheless 59 appreciated. 60 61 I hate hobbies. Hobbies end up being curtained-off room in the basement where 62 we hide the life we wish we could be living. 63 64 In my own adult life, I do lots of things. I design shit. I paint. I do 65 workshops. I make zines. I write. I love doing all of those things, and I 66 manage to do some of them for money. But to me they are equally important. And 67 while I have to acknowledge that all of this takes a certain amount of luck and 68 privilege, it also takes a plan. 69 70 When we started our design shop (the money work), one of the first things we 71 did was set boundaries for ourselves. We worked from 9–6 and from 72 Monday–Friday. I never sold my weekends, and I never lived beyond my means in a 73 way that required me to sell my weekends. As time went on I did all I could to 74 reduce the things I did for money so I could spend time doing the things I 75 enjoyed that didn’t make money. Both things were equally important. 76 77 Is this privileged? Yes. Is this a privilege that we need to extend to every 78 human being on earth? Also fucking yes, in a big way. (And if we have the money 79 to fund a genocide, we have the money for UBI.) 80 81 Hobby is capitalism’s word. It’s a crumb from capitalism’s table. Capitalism is 82 happy that you have a hobby, especially if it can sell you HO-scale train sets 83 to complete it, but that hobby can never be taken as seriously as what 84 capitalism might need from you. (Oh, and that thing capitalism might need from 85 you? Well, design is your passion, so they don’t really need to pay you 86 adequately for that, do they?) 87 88 Sadly, capitalism is still with us, and we need to earn. So when you have to 89 clock in, clock in. And when you clock out, clock the fuck out. Take off that 90 stupid watch that sends texts and emails to your wrist. Toss your laptop in the 91 basement. Get behind that drumkit, get in front of that easel, get your ass in 92 the garden, straddle that potter’s wheel, strap on the messenger bag with all 93 your paint cans and nozzles in it, and get the fuck to work. 94 95 All those are work. 96 97 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 98 99 🙋 Got a question? [6]Ask it. 100 101 📖 [7]Ordering zines means I can spend more time painting. Plus, you get 102 stickers and a zine. 103 104 👎 An industry that can’t hold on to the people it most needs is [8]an industry 105 that doesn’t deserve air. Vivianne is a friend, and I am so proud of everything 106 she’s done. 107 108 📻 I’ve been enjoying the new podcast [9]Rebel Spirit from Akilah Hughes, 109 produced by my friend Dan Sinker. 110 111 Don't miss what's next. Subscribe to Mike Monteiro’s Good News: 112 [10][ ] Subscribe 113 Brought to you by [12]Buttondown, the easiest way to start and grow your 114 newsletter. 115 116 References: 117 118 [1] https://buttondown.com/monteiro 119 [2] https://buttondown.com/monteiro#subscribe-form 120 [3] https://buttondown.com/monteiro/rss 121 [4] https://buttondown.com/monteiro/archive/ 122 [5] https://www.worldsgreatestartist.com/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-many-hobbies-is-too-many 123 [6] https://www.mikemonteiro.com/ask-a-question?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-many-hobbies-is-too-many 124 [7] https://www.designisajob.com/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-many-hobbies-is-too-many 125 [8] https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7239687397918056448/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-many-hobbies-is-too-many 126 [9] https://omny.fm/shows/rebel-spirit/episode-1-a-homecoming-1?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-many-hobbies-is-too-many 127 [12] https://buttondown.com/