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+Mike Monteiro’s Good News logo
+[1] Mike Monteiro’s Good News [2]
+Subscribe
+[3]
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+September 11, 2024
+
+How many hobbies is too many?
+
+[5]Two identical paintings. Each painting is two panels. The top panels is a
+black and white word balloon that says GENOCIDE IS PAINLESS. The bottom panel
+is a anthropomorphized slice of watermelon.Couple little paintings I did this
+week for reasons.
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+This week’s question comes to us from Gord Fynes:
+
+How many hobbies is too many? There's only so many hours in the day, days in
+the week, etc.
+
+One. One hobby is too many.
+
+I hate hobbies. Rather, I hate calling things hobbies. The word hobby is almost
+always used apologetically. It carries a certain amount of shame, an element of
+wasted time, or at least time not well-spent, certainly time spent not
+“earning.” And therein lies the problem.
+
+Let’s get personal. When I was a kid, my father “earned” by doing construction
+work. He’d leave early in the morning and come home caked in cement from laying
+foundations. He was not a happy person to be around. He hated his job and he
+took it out on his family. After dinner, which was never pleasant, he would
+either disappear out the door or disappear into the basement.
+
+The basement was off limits to us. It’s where he painted. Years later, I got
+brave enough to go door there. Behind a curtained-off area, I found a workbench
+full of intricately painted tiles, always in blue. I found coffee cans full of
+brushes, some of them carefully handmade. And I found family photographs taped
+to the wall. All of this was new to me, and I couldn’t understand why someone
+who was always so full of rage towards me would have my school photo taped to
+the wall above his workbench. In some ways I still don’t.
+
+As years passed, his secret became less of a secret. He’d occasionally bring a
+tile up and hang it in the kitchen. Eventually, I’d learn the tiles were called
+azulejos. Eventually, I’d learn that he was a trained azulejo painter in his
+native Portugal, and well-regarded for it. Then he immigrated to the United
+States where he laid cement to earn for his family. And I wondered what he
+would’ve been like if he could’ve spent his life doing what he loved.
+Selfishly, I wondered what my life would’ve been like if he could’ve spent his
+life doing what he loved.
+
+As more years passed, my father realized I had some form of artistic talent and
+I was allowed behind the curtain, especially if he needed lettering. He sucked
+at lettering.
+
+When I decided I wanted to go to art school, my mother objected, but my father
+did not. And while this did not make up for years of abuse, it was nonetheless
+appreciated.
+
+I hate hobbies. Hobbies end up being curtained-off room in the basement where
+we hide the life we wish we could be living.
+
+In my own adult life, I do lots of things. I design shit. I paint. I do
+workshops. I make zines. I write. I love doing all of those things, and I
+manage to do some of them for money. But to me they are equally important. And
+while I have to acknowledge that all of this takes a certain amount of luck and
+privilege, it also takes a plan.
+
+When we started our design shop (the money work), one of the first things we
+did was set boundaries for ourselves. We worked from 9–6 and from
+Monday–Friday. I never sold my weekends, and I never lived beyond my means in a
+way that required me to sell my weekends. As time went on I did all I could to
+reduce the things I did for money so I could spend time doing the things I
+enjoyed that didn’t make money. Both things were equally important.
+
+Is this privileged? Yes. Is this a privilege that we need to extend to every
+human being on earth? Also fucking yes, in a big way. (And if we have the money
+to fund a genocide, we have the money for UBI.)
+
+Hobby is capitalism’s word. It’s a crumb from capitalism’s table. Capitalism is
+happy that you have a hobby, especially if it can sell you HO-scale train sets
+to complete it, but that hobby can never be taken as seriously as what
+capitalism might need from you. (Oh, and that thing capitalism might need from
+you? Well, design is your passion, so they don’t really need to pay you
+adequately for that, do they?)
+
+Sadly, capitalism is still with us, and we need to earn. So when you have to
+clock in, clock in. And when you clock out, clock the fuck out. Take off that
+stupid watch that sends texts and emails to your wrist. Toss your laptop in the
+basement. Get behind that drumkit, get in front of that easel, get your ass in
+the garden, straddle that potter’s wheel, strap on the messenger bag with all
+your paint cans and nozzles in it, and get the fuck to work.
+
+All those are work.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+🙋 Got a question? [6]Ask it.
+
+📖 [7]Ordering zines means I can spend more time painting. Plus, you get
+stickers and a zine.
+
+👎 An industry that can’t hold on to the people it most needs is [8]an industry
+that doesn’t deserve air. Vivianne is a friend, and I am so proud of everything
+she’s done.
+
+📻 I’ve been enjoying the new podcast [9]Rebel Spirit from Akilah Hughes,
+produced by my friend Dan Sinker.
+
+Don't miss what's next. Subscribe to Mike Monteiro’s Good News:
+[10][                    ] Subscribe
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+References:
+
+[1] https://buttondown.com/monteiro
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+[3] https://buttondown.com/monteiro/rss
+[4] https://buttondown.com/monteiro/archive/
+[5] https://www.worldsgreatestartist.com/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-many-hobbies-is-too-many
+[6] https://www.mikemonteiro.com/ask-a-question?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-many-hobbies-is-too-many
+[7] https://www.designisajob.com/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-many-hobbies-is-too-many
+[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
+[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
+[12] https://buttondown.com/