30 Hobbies — 30 Months
List of all the hobbies I tried in the last 3 years. Some stuck, some didn’t. But each one changed something in my life.
I never thought that someday I will write this blog. I didn’t plan to do this. But now when I look back at everything I did in the last few years, It feels exciting.
A friend of mine deconstructed my behavior to me: That I have this habit of trying out new things, getting obsessed with them, and then leaving them. We tried calculating a few. And then I took my own time to make an exhaustive list and publish it.
These hobbies are in no particular order. If you like these, try them out.
So, here we go:
1. Gardening
I had this itch of nurturing something in life, I wanted to go for a pet dog. But couldn’t do that. So I brought a couple of plants home in August 2020. Nurturing plants, remembering their water and sunlight requirements, timely tilling of the soil, etc. made me feel good. This hobby introduced a new point of view in my life. Now I have 18 plants in my flat and counting. A lot of plants died too and I experienced loss and emotion that I never felt before.
Thanks to Gardenup YouTube channel which helped me learn gardening.
2. Guitar
I started learning guitar in 2018 from my friend. Quickly picked up the open cords and basic strumming. In the early days, I used to play one strumming pattern on the 4 open chords I was comfortable with. Later I learned switching between chords, playing without a plectrum, and more patterns. Now after two years, I play a lot of Bollywood songs at house parties.
My bucket list task is to perform at a cafe somewhere. Thanks to Aman Panotra’s YouTube channel. I learned a lot from him.
3. Chess
For the last month, I am hooked to playing chess online. Thanks to Samay Raina’s YouTube channel. I watch games played by Grandmasters, interviews of chess players, and tutorials on how to get better at playing chess. I also play 2–4 games on lichess.org almost every day. My profile on Lichess, in case you’d like to play against me.
4. Waking up early
I get really serious about waking up early multiple times in a year. I don’t set any task to do after waking up at 5 or 6 AM. I just make it a point to wake up early and do whatever I want. Later I started to go on a run or walk or cycle. But on most days I used to wake up early and sit empty. On some days I used to write. I have noticed that on my streak of waking up early I feel, my sleep routine gets better. But external events that require me to stay up hurt this a lot. All in all, I really enjoy this.
5. Running
Around the time when lockdown eased in 2020. I realized that I was not doing any physical hard work for months. So I started running and on some days cycling in the Alps of Gurgaon.
6. Writing poems and a book
I wrote mostly for myself and kept my poems in Google keep. Then I started writing for Letterflix and a parody Instagram account Kupi Raur. Recently published my first e-book (collection of all the tiny letters I wrote for Letterflix) called Tiny Letters. I guess I will publish my kupi raur poems too in form of an e-book (for fun).
I also tried writing romance fiction. Wrote around 20,000 words in three months and left it mid-way. Felt like I wasn’t going anywhere with that story. It is my dream to publish a book, will give it a shot later.
7. Exploring bookstores
There was a time when I used to go to a bookstore every weekend and spend hours exploring books. Oxford bookstore CP, Chapter 101, OM Bookshop, and a few more in the NCR. Later the frequency reduced because of various reasons. Those were the days when I discovered Khalil Gibran’s work. Now I visit bookstores at least once a month to check the books that are on my To-read list on Goodreads.
8.Interior decor
I got interested in home decor around the time I started bringing more and more plants home. I always had an obsession with homes, architecture, aesthetics, functional design, and keeping my place clean. I watched videos, read articles, and also started following Instagram pages that post interior decor content for inspiration. Right now, this is a sleeping passion. Once I get the time and have capital on spare on decor, I would love to implement this in my own place.
9. Table tennis
When we shifted our office to WeWork, Table Tennis came into my life. At first, I struggled and felt frustrated playing the first 10–15 games. This game requires great hand-eye coordination and subtle use of strength. Me having played only cricket for most of my life couldn’t keep the ball on the table. It took me a month to learn enough to at least play a game. But now I am obsessed with TT and with improving my game. Due to COVID guidelines, the TT table is again out of reach. But I am looking forward to playing a game again.
10. Cafe hopping
I love the concept of outdoor seating, sofas, sunlight, greenery, and food. I explored dozens of cafes and I maintain a list of my favorite locations. I keep updating it, adding new ones, removing old ones.
11. Cooking
I enjoy cooking, especially for others. I never learned it from anyone, just observed what my mom did in the kitchen, and then when it was my turn to cook, I just did it.
Cooking is peaceful. It is a kind of activity in which all your senses are at work, touch, smell, vision, keeping track of time, physical movement. And the end result is rewarding.
12. Cricket
Played cricket a lot from class 6th to 12th. Every time I am back home and get a chance to meet my old friends, I try and sneak a chance to play again. I was a decent fast bowler and poor batsman. I am looking for places where I can play cricket in Gurgaon. I am looking forward to booking a practice session on Hudle.in.
13. Traveling
There was a time when I hated the stage of transit. The time between point A to point B. Be it in a train, auto, bike, car, or airplane. I was more interested in Point B and not the time in between. Slowly I started enjoying the time in between. I haven’t traveled a lot. I have seen only a few cities and places. But I did a solo trip last year. After that, I created a list of places I want to visit once (alone).
14. Morning walks
This is part of the “tried walking up early” thing. But this also became prominent when the morning walks were the only me-time I was getting. The time after that was all for work, friends, and family. I enjoy going for a walk in the morning. I obsessively did it for several weeks.
15. Gyming
My peak in gyming and gaining muscles was in the final year of college. I spent hours learning different types of workout routines, making diet plans, obsessing over recovery time, and drinking water. Tried protein supplement, 8 eggs a day, lots of milk, etc. I am thankful for this phase that I completely cut down on cold drinks and chips.
16. Pets
I remember my first pet dog when I was in class 4th. After her, when I was in class 6th, I got Tuffy. All my pet dogs have always been indie. I never purchased but adopted them from the streets.
That’s Tuffy, my longest-living pet (10 years) enjoying the sun and grass. Because of him, my family became a dog-loving family and now every dog in my colony (in my hometown) is our pet.
I still research a lot on dog breeds, their food requirements, how to train them, etc. Hoping to get a german shepherd and a Doberman someday.
17. Side Projects
The idea of starting multiple startups is exciting. But it is hard at the same time. In fact, very hard. So instead of calling my every new product idea a startup. I call them side projects. And all the side-projects I work on function and get built because of this guy.
You can find all my side projects here at byxyz.net.
18. Photography
I started learning and practicing photography and photo editing in my college days. Got a Nikon D5200 for me with the basic 18–55mm lens from PayTm Mall (heavy discounts). And learned how to use it, learned Lightroom for editing, and started exploring the stock photo industry at that time.
At one point in my life, I was so serious about photography that I was researching and considering MFA in photography.
19. Binge reading
Every few months, I go into binge reading mode and finish 2–3 books in a couple of months. That’s my top speed (I know it’s not much). This habit of mine helped me build a collection of 50+ books. I also maintain a list of all those books in an excel sheet.
20. Binge-watching
In my head, binge-watching is a dumb thing to do. But I still ended up binge-watching a few television series on Netflix and Amazon Prime. My favorite of all time is Californication (Wikipedia).
21. Blogging
In college, I used to write blogs (articles on various topics) and keep them in my Google docs (unpublished). I did that for months to get better at writing English. I struggled with grammar a lot. Then I came across Grammarly. And soon started writing on Quora and my own blog Xreach (switched it from WordPress to Medium). And soon I got my first paid gig for blogging at Photofie.
Later I worked for many clients as a freelancer. And published on several websites. This hobby of mine paid off in the long run.
22. Food walks
I am not a big fan of food. I don’t call myself a foodie. I am not obsessed with taste. But only because I was in NCR, I tried going to several locations in Delhi and try the food at different locations. Doing it alone wasn’t fun though.
23. Shopping
I don’t shop a lot. I purchase stuff when I seriously need it. But there was a phase when I was buying something new every week. Nothing expensive, but something. I got more plants, plastic trays for plants, ashtray, bookmark, etc. I felt the shopping high for a while there. Buying new things can definitely make you happy. And I felt it first hand for a while.
24. Cryptocurrency trading
This hobby’s phase of mine only lasted for a few months and I guess, now has vanished forever.
25. Researching about religion
This started when I finished reading Sapiens and Homo Deus. After that, I watched almost all the interviews of Yuval Noah Harari. I think this hobby started when I read Killing Jesus in 2nd year of college. At that time I read in-depth about Abrahamic religions. Soon I picked up Jaya. It is a very fascinating book to read. This hobby is still alive and I love exploring various religions, their beliefs, and practices.
26. Geography
I find geography fascinating. When I first learned about tectonic plates, Pangaea, and global trading routes, I got instantly hooked to it. To study a lot of geographic phenomena (for example Sahara desert was once a savannah), you need to turn to astronomy. Each answer leads to a new dimension, a new “thing” to learn about. I am still obsessed with geography.
27. History
How can one study Geography and Astronomy and not stumble into History? I am weak at remembering events, but after so many years of study, I have formed mental maps of major events and their order of occurrence. once you study geography, astronomy, and history, the events that lead to news headlines these days make little sense (since they seem unimportant).
28. Fixing my wardrobe
For a couple of months, January and February of 2020, I found myself obsessing over “what clothes do I have”. And after that brief period of time, I went back to the person I was. But I am thankful that I fixed my wardrobe.
29. Joining online communities and participating in virtual meetups
Recently I joined a slack community called The Product Folks, tried a virtual meetup on Grabchai.online, and one virtual one-on-one on coffeemug.ai. The world of virtual meetups is broken. But people are working hard to make virtual communities work and they are pretty useful too.
30. Fashion and apparel industry
I came across Fendi, Balenciaga, Karl Lagerfeld, and Coco Chanel. Read about them, obsessively watched their interviews, and tried to get my head around how they built these fashion empires. I too ideated a few clothing brands and currently planning to launch them online. Thanks to blinkstore.in, I will get to launch them soon.
My reason for doing so many different things is to keep myself busy and keep exploring new things.
If you’d like to try any of these things, go ahead. Who knows what might stick and change you and your life forever.
