Commodifying Leisure
Analyzing our impulse to profit off our passions and normalizing fulfillment outside of work.
Over the past two years, I’ve become a hobby aficionado—hiking, watercolor, cooking, pottery, bowling, rock climbing, pole dancing—and that’s just off the top of my head. As I’ve progressed in some of these activities, I’ll have a few well-intentioned loved ones say things like “you should open an Etsy store!”, “have you ever thought about selling x at the farmer’s market?”. I find it interesting that once you get better at some marketable hobby, people’s natural next inclination is to monetize it. And let me get this straight, I’m not trying to put down people who have chosen to monetize their hobbies, I strongly believe in supporting and properly compensating artists and creators, I just find it interesting that the natural progression of mastering a skill eventually becomes your ability to profit off it.
I’ve never been a super competitive person, I’ve always said as soon as there are stakes involved, I’m out. However, I won’t deny I enjoy being good at things and having people tell me that I’m good at things. I’m lucky that I find my actual salaried job very fulfilling and that I have the time to pursue hobbies on the side—not everyone has that privilege. But I find it a little sad that once you get really into something like baking or a handicraft you’re encouraged to try to sell it. Of course, it’s incredibly validating to have someone love whatever you create so much that they’re willing to put their dollars on it, but for me, once you monetize something it stops being something you solely do for yourself and the external pressure to create nullifies the entire purpose of a hobby. Maybe I’m just ornery though, I’m sure if someone was kind enough to offer to pay me to bake something for them I’d get so excited and that request would not seriously impact my ability to enjoy that activity.
“You don’t have to always be creating, doing, and contributing to the world.”
-Tricia Hearsey, Rest is Resistance
Our urge to commodify our pastimes and find side hustles seems partially spurred on by the pandemic. The combination of being sequestered in our homes along with a major workforce shift towards remote work allowed people to explore new passions and multitask more throughout the work day. That’s why I find it funny when I see employers complaining about the reluctance to return to fully in-office settings. Sure, there are some things you can’t really replicate remotely, but overall people work much more efficiently at home to the point where they’re juggling multiple side hustles!
And finally, I can’t help but think about how capitalism factors into this urge to commodify our leisure. The discourse on rest, pleasure, and leisure as an act of resistance against capitalism and other systems of oppression is not a new idea, it’s discussed in Marxism, but I won’t bore y’all with the theory. There is, increasingly, discourse regarding rest as liberation, especially for BIPOC and other marginalized communities. I won’t speak on behalf of those communities, but I’d recommend checking out the books Pleasure Activism by Adrienne Maree Brown and Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hearsey if you’d like to dive deeper into the topic.
“Pleasure is not one of the spoils of capitalism. It is what our bodies, our human systems, are structured for; it is the aliveness and awakening, the gratitude and humility, the joy and celebration of being miraculous.”
-Adrienne Maree Brown, Pleasure Activism
Even keeping these ideas in mind, I still struggle to let my relaxation and leisure time truly be restful. For one thing, many of the hobbies I listed earlier require some kind of monetary investment! Again, I understand the necessity of this but it still annoys me that many times I have to go spend money to do something fun and be in community, even if I’m just trying to go meet some friends out in public. More personally, I’ve been wanting to get more involved in volunteering of some kind over the past year. The issue I’ve found is that because I already work for a nonprofit that serves food-insecure people, the idea of volunteering for needy communities feels like I’m carrying my work with me in some ways. I feel a little bit like a bad person for saying that, but it’s important for me to have those boundaries between my work and my leisure time so I avoid getting burnt out.
Of course, I speak as a person who’s lucky enough to be paid a fair wage to do work that helps my community. But lately, as I’ve been toying with the idea of moving to a different city, I’ve thought about the narrative we’ve been sold that our work needs to be our primary passion. Even though that’s important to me, I don’t think that’s necessarily true and there’s a lot of good that can come of seeking fulfillment outside of work. It’s definitely not easy, as in our adult lives work becomes a big determinant of a lot of things, where we live, who we see every day, etc. But it’s a comforting thought and something I’m challenging myself to keep in mind as I continue to grow and evolve as a person.
Soft Spots
Things that make this A soft[er] landing place.
Unblocked nostrils, un-sore throat, and being in generally good health.
I saw this posted somewhere online and while it sounds a bit silly, we really don’t appreciate how great not being sick is until it’s too late. I got a pretty bad sinus infection at the start of 2023 and being stuck at home sick and alone truly gets old for me after the second day. So, whenever I’m going through a bit of a moody moment, I do try my best to be appreciative of the fact I can breathe through both nostrils freely, my throat isn’t sore, and I’m not generally physically ailed.
The comfort and quiet of home.
I consider myself a “quiet extrovert”, so while I find being around others energizing, it can also become exhausting once that social battery has been drained. Usually, I have to schedule in time to get my social fix for the week, but I recently returned from a work trip where, aside from sleeping, I was literally never alone. That experience was both fun and exhausting, and it has provided me the additional joy making the familiar comforts of home all the more precious.
Bramble: The Mountain King video game.
I don’t consider myself a true gamer, I don’t even really own a console (though I recently snatched the family Wii U so I can finally finish Breathe of the Wild and play the sequel on Switch). But I love the art, storytelling, and soundtracks of a lot of games, so I’ll often watch streamers do playthroughs of games online while multitasking. Most recently, I watched jacksepticeye’s playthrough of Bramble, which takes heavy inspiration from Nordic fables. The game is simultaneously gorgeous and truly horrifying at parts—and I don’t say that lightly. If you’re into dark fairytales I think you should totally give this game a play, I honestly might try to play it myself at some point.
Still from one of the game’s landscapes. Kulning—Ancient Swedish herding call.
This partially relates to the Bramble video game as well—snippets of kulning are incorporated into the game’s soundtrack. Kulning is a sort of ancient Swedish folk “song” used by women to call in the cow and goat herds from their mountain grazing during the summer. The calls make use of high-pitched melodic ululations that travel far distances across the countryside. They could sometimes be used to communicate with other people in the mountains as well. While it’s not technically music, modern recordings of people kulning are very beautiful and haunting. The sound of it feels very primordial but still romantic. Oh to be a maiden, calling out to your herd in the deep woods. Oh to be a cow, following the call that promises warm shelter from the night.
Revisiting Spanish as my second language.
I’ve been getting to know one of my newer co-workers lately who also happens to be bilingual, and it’s been really fun speaking Spanish again. Language learning was something I had such a passion for during college but I haven’t been able to keep up with as much as I’ve wanted. I’m trying to be patient with it, I’d love to one day be able to read a full-length novel in Spanish but I don’t think I’m quite there yet, so I’ve been settling for reading shorter articles and listening to bilingual podcasts. One of my ultimate dreams is to live and work abroad again, so it’s really important to me to keep my languages in decent condition for that fated day.
On the surface, this book is about grief and the different ways we process it. But to me, it’s more about connection and finding our way back to each other time and time again. I think it’s a great book to read if you’re feeling a little lost and in need of some comfort.
When was it I realized that, on this truly dark and solitary path we all walk, the only way we can light is our own? Although I was raised with love, I was always lonely. Someday, without fail, everyone will disappear, scattered into the blackness of time. I’ve always lived with that knowledge rooted in my being.
The viral “Sleep Mocktail”.
I got influenced to try it and so should you! I’m usually a pretty sound sleeper, but when I get really stressed out that diminishes significantly. By pure coincidence, I was having a week of pretty bad sleep when I saw someone online talking about the “Sleep Mocktail”. As a lover of fun beverages and good sleep, I immediately ran to the grocery store to try it. All it is powdered magnesium supplement, tart cherry juice, and sparkling water to top it off. In addition to being tasty, tart cherry juice contains melatonin which is commonly used as a sleep aid. Maybe it’s a placebo effect, but I slept pretty well every time I made this drink at bedtime. If you’re like me and don’t feel eager to drop $30 on a tub of magnesium supplement to try this, you can get little individual portion packs for less than a dollar each.
My family’s Mother’s Day french toast tradition.
Every year my dad chooses some random French toast recipe and we get together and make it for my mom. It’s always last minute and chaotic, but I love how we make it work. This year consisted of repurposing some deeply unripe sliced mangos into a strawberry-mango rum compote. It’s amazing how butter, sugar, and heat can transform some otherwise underwhelming fruit into something worthy of a Mother’s Day french toast. I feel so lucky to have, and continue to, celebrate my Mom together.
These songs that feel like spring to me.
A good laugh, a heated debate, conversations where there don’t seem to be enough words.
If you’ve read through all this way, thanks for landing here for a bit. I hope this season of your life brings you softness, perfectly ripe fruit, and fulfillment in all the ways that matter to you.
