I Need a Hobby

With classes concluding and me not having much else to do with my time except study, I am finding myself very bored. There just isn't much of anything catching my attention anymore. A lot of my time is spent surfing the web, but that's hardly a productive hobby. I want something to do in my free time that I can be passionate about.

As it stands my main hobbies are Minecraft, writing, and programming. Honestly, Minecraft is a video game and doesn't really offer much beside maybe an hour of daily mindless entertainment. I briefly had a let's play series on YouTube about it. Perhaps this summer I will make some more videos. But otherwise it's not a worthwhile hobby anymore.

Writing is enjoyable but I'm constantly hitting writer's block. I have an initial idea in mind for a story but I just can't seem to make a full fledged story out of it. One of my life goals is to write a novel but I don't seem able to make stories long enough to be a publishable novel (about 70,000 words). It's a fun experience to make a story, but if nobody's ever going to read it, it's rather meaningless.

I've developed a habit of spending about an hour a day doing web programming on my own time. It's something I want to do as a career and being a computer science major in college I get my fill of programming every day.

I am in need of something to do with my time.

I need a hobby.

"Ideal Hobby"

What kind of things would make a good hobby for me?

• One where I could use my natural talent for critical thinking.
• One that takes me away from my laptop.
• One that is a mostly solitary activity.
• One where I could meet up with others in some kind of club on a routine basis and discuss with others what I've learned during my free time. This would be a good way for me to make new friends as well.

Through some introspection I've come to two things I would enjoy as hobbies, and can't really decide between which.

"Philosophically Speaking"

Something that's really fascinated me for the past couple years is Christian apologetics, which is defending the faith using reason. A large part of this uses philosophy. Occasionally I enjoy ruminating over things and it might potentially be fun for me to look more into philosophy.

I think theology is a branch of philosophy. There are a lot of ways people have tried to understand the Bible and how to live the Christian life. My desire to understand what I believe and what doctrines are true leads me to explore theology further.

"History Buff"

There's something about history that I like. It's sort of the story of mankind, except the characters are real and the events affect us to this day. The rise and fall of empires, structures of governments, wars, and so on are fun to read.

Right now three specific pieces of history interest me: history of the Roman Republic and Empire; church history; British history. All three are entities that have or had lasted for over a thousand years. The have influenced the entire world in some fashion. All three are also noted for being rather structured.

History of Rome is sorta what I am leaning most toward right now, which church history not too far behind. The two are pretty connected since Jesus's land was owned by the Roman Empire in his time. My attention is being captivated by events taking place between the foundation of civilization and about AD 0. History as a hobby would involve mainly reading. Incidentally, it's also got philosophical elements.

"Run!"

A secondary hobby that would good for me to pick up, as a matter of dropping weight, is running. I like to run. Win-win. Shoot, I could listen to history podcasts while running.

Can anyone suggest good hobbies for me?