Hobby versus Pastime!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Ok, with a question like this, I am setting myself up for the inevitable “Dude, Hobby so kicks Pastime’s ass!”
Ah, no matter - I just love versus threads :stuck_out_tongue:

But I digress: As you might have guessed, this thread isn’t about a grudge match between Hobby and Pastime. It’s rather about my definition of the two, a comparison and a lament of how in the meantime I ended up having the latter, but lacking the former.

So what exactly is a hobby and what’s a pastime? And even more importantly, what sets the two apart? A quick glance at dictionary.reference.com yields the following definitions:
“Pastime: An activity that occupies one’s spare time pleasently: Sailing is her favorite pastime.”
“Hobby: An activity or interest pursued outside one’s regular occupation and engaged in primarily for pleasure.”
These two definitions are very similar, but the word “interest” in the hobby description is an indicator that the activity cannot be an isolated event. Here comes my own distinction of the two, building on that premise: I am of the opinion that every activity - even a “passive” activity (you know what I mean and “passivity” as opposed to “activity” just doesn’t fill the bill) like watching TV - would qualify as pastime.

A hobby in contrast, requires some sort of devotion and real activity - a “passive” activity would need a creative quality in order to make it a hobby - so excessive watching of TV still wouldn’t count as hobby in my opinion, your mileage may vary. If you would start writing reviews of all the daily shows you’ve seen, it would then count as hobby, since the creative component is fulfilled. Now mind you, these are just my own observations to differentiate the two.

With that established, I started thinking about my own hobbies - the most prominent being writing, gamedesign, programming and playing volleyball. The big problem is that my frequency of engaging in any of those “hobbies” has significantly dropped - in the case of volleyball it is extreme, I haven’t played since 1997. So, all of my hobbies have faded and entered the realm of pastimes, which is making me sad on reflection. The grand plan is to remedy that and pick up a couple of the old hobbies and perhaps add a few new ones.

Here comes to the part where I am looking for input:
Do you agree with my above mentioned distinction between hobby and pastime? If not, what’s your definition of the two?
Are there any pastimes you particularly enjoy, that I could try out and see whether I would like to pursue them as well?
What are your hobbies?

And if there’s anything else to add, comments and criticism alike is always welcome :slight_smile:
Oh and by the way, Hobby would indeed kick Pastime’s ass! :smiley:

2

A Pastime is just something you do.

For it to be a Hobby, you have to buy stuff. Have you ever seen a “Pastine Shop”? No, you haven’t. But “Hobby Shop” has its own heading in the Yellow Pages.

3

There’s no way this is a dictionary style definition, but it sort of fits with Rue’s. With a hobby at the end of the day you’ll have something to show for your efforts - even if it’s something intangible like a computer program. Sailing -for example- is a passtime, all you have afterwards is wet clothes and a tan. Stamp collecting is a hobby, you get to look after lots of small sticky pieces of paper :rolleyes:

OK now I’ll get shot down.

4

Gotta go with Rue on this one. A hobby requires you to spend enormous amounts of money on inconsequential things that are very important to you, but utterly meaningless to your wife.

That, and passtimes are things your wife will *chuckle * about when she describes them to her friends. Hobbies are what she bitches about to the same friends.

Honey, I’m kidding!..Honey?

5

Near as I can tell, it’s a matter of how much time and money you spend doing something. If you occasionally piddle around with something, it’s a pasttime. If your wife is exasperated by the amount of time and money you’re spending on something, it’s a hobby. If she’s actively pissed about the time and money, it’s an obsession.