Get Your Hands Dirty
August 25, 2026
“A hobby shouldn’t always require Wi-Fi.”
——-
Somewhere along the way, leisure became increasingly passive. We scroll, stream, watch, and consume. There is nothing wrong with any of those things—I can binge-watch television with the best of them—but there is a different satisfaction that comes from actually doing something. Gardening, woodworking, cooking, painting, restoring a car, playing an instrument or throwing a baseball all require participation. A 2024 study published in Frontiers in Public Health, using data from more than 7,000 adults in England, found that participation in arts and crafts was associated with higher reported life satisfaction, happiness, and a stronger sense that life was worthwhile after researchers accounted for several demographic factors. The study was correlational, so it cannot establish that crafting caused those outcomes, but it adds to the case for active rather than exclusively passive leisure.
Baseball does that for me. There is absolutely nothing efficient about putting on a uniform, driving to a ballpark, standing in the Texas heat and trying to hit a baseball thrown by another grown man. I could watch a major-league game from an air-conditioned room and see considerably better baseball. But that’s precisely the point. Watching isn’t playing. When you’re standing in the batter’s box, trying to field a ground ball or attempting to throw a strike, you’re completely in the physical world. For a few hours, there are no emails to answer and no screen capable of duplicating the experience. As our entertainment becomes increasingly digital, hobbies that require us to physically participate may become more valuable precisely because they demand something from us.
The Takeaway: Find at least one form of leisure that makes you a participant rather than a spectator.
