Free Time

Q: What do you usually do in your free time? A: It varies quite a bit. Most evenings I read, which is the default mode when nothing else is happening. On weekends I tend to be more intentional about it — hiking occasionally, visiting places I haven't been to before, or cooking something that takes longer than I'd have time for on a weekday. Q: Do you prefer spending free time alone or with other people? A: A bit of both, depending on how the week has gone. If I've had a particularly social week at work — a lot of meetings, a lot of interaction — I usually want more time alone at the weekend. If the week has been mostly solitary, I look forward to seeing people. I think I've become better at reading which one I actually need. Q: Has the way you spend your free time changed since you were a child? A: Quite a lot, yes. I spent most of my free time outdoors as a child — cycling, playing in the neighbourhood, that kind of thing. Now it's more indoor and more directed. I read more, learn things deliberately, do less random physical activity. I'm not sure whether that's an improvement or just a grown-up version of the same underlying restlessness. Q: Is it important to have hobbies? Why? A: I think they matter more as structure than as activities. Work defines a large part of your identity and schedule, and when work goes through a difficult patch, having something else that you do regularly and do reasonably well provides a kind of stability. Beyond that, hobbies tend to produce a quality of absorption — being genuinely occupied by something — that ordinary screen time doesn't.