Brainstorm: 33
Tuesday, 07 July 2015
By. Blake Tereau
“Eccentric hobbies”
Blake, Vaite, and I went for a leisurely stroll down the beach.
After a few minutes, Blake spots something in the sand, reaches down, and picks up three coins — a quarter, a nickel, and a penny.
His smile! As giddy as a boy who has found treasure.
The conversation, as I remember it:
F&V: Dude. Why are you so happy?
B: I set a goal for myself: find $20 in lost change by the end of the year.
F&V: What?! Why?!
B: My first passive income stream.
**F&V bust up laughing**
B: Once, my mom and I spent forty minutes looking for a penny in a parking lot. For fun. We found one.
F&V: WHAT?! You realize that a penny represents about 1/10,000th of your hourly rate? What a waste of time and mental energy!
B: Yeah, but it has surprising benefits.
F&V: Like what?
B: Finding money always feels good. It opens my eyes to the luck and opportunity around me. I’ve acquired a strange taste for rusty rare coins…
The more questions we asked,
the more fascinated we became with Blake’s eccentric hobby.
Do you have an eccentric hobby?
(Vaite and I realized that we do too!)
Formula for an eccentric hobby:
1. Only you do it. Or you + cult acolytes.
2. It makes no sense. Logically, financially, time investment — it just isn’t practical.
3. Twisted justifications that make weird sense. The longer you listen, the more sense they make.
Oh, and one more: traumatic origins.
One or more traumas in your past resulted in this eccentricity.
Come on, share!
