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Comment by belorn | Hacker News Reader

It highlight the need for hobbies. I find it somewhat odd that in my own culture, hobbies has become less prioritized in the image of an well adapted healthy individual. It might be part of urbanization where the focus is on the job and less on side activities like growing things for fun, taking care of animals, hunting, fishing, walking in the forest and so on.

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I get that sense, and also an urgency that every hobby needs to be monetized as a side gig. I'm not sure if this severity loosens with age but it's as though people want to telegraph they are hustling all the way to the grave.

There's a real freedom in fun or interest for its own sake and not needing to rationalize its usefulness. One way to accomplish this is to deal with those externalities in some other fashion, like through effective altruism, e.g. donating to favorite charities, and periodically (not constantly) being informed on what the big issues are.

>an urgency that every hobby needs to be monetized as a side gig

Of course it needs to be monetized. This is America - if you are good at it, it must make money

BTW, this is SOLID sarcasm.

> an urgency that every hobby needs to be monetized as a side gig

I noticed this effect most prominently when moving from Pittsburgh to NYC. In Pittsburgh my circle of friends generally had noncommercial side projects, weird art installations, and hobbies that had nothing to do with their day jobs and no commercial potential. In NYC my circle of friends spent a lot more time discussing how much their rent cost (more than 2-3x the cost of comparable units in Pittsburgh) and it felt like people spent a lot more time "hustling", trying to monetize their side projects, or advancing their (or their children's) chances at earning more.

I have no way of knowing if these two circles were representative, but I suspect the fact that NYC salaries are generally only ~1.5x higher than Pittsburgh salaries meant that many people had to devote more of their mental and financial resources to the cost of living.

One thing I recall is that when NYC first became a national hub for artists, the rent was relatively cheap. It explains in part why they flocked there in the first place. I'm not sure if there's any appropriate area for an exodus at this point. People seem to go for Boston, or Austin.

Urbanization could be a huge part of it. In my rural area, it's pretty standard that retired men universally convert into avid hunters. I'm learning that no matter the time of year there's always something tasty you're allowed to go out and kill.

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