Rather an embarrassing one to confess to. I’m British – English variety, always resident in England, but with a lifelong love of Wales and things and people Welsh. I’ve always fancied the idea of learning the (still alive and relatively thriving – and with an impressive literature) Welsh language. This would be basically, just for fun – no practical application, save maybe for visiting Wales and conversing with locals in their native tongue.
Now, or fifty-odd years ago when I first conceived this idea: there has been no shortage hereabouts of available “gear” for an individual Anglophone, to learn Welsh. Regrettably, though – I’m one of the laziest individuals on the planet; and my various attempts at the project have faded out, for lack of managing to keep up the sustained effort necessary to accomplish it. In theory, it’s always been something which I would love to do – sadly the gap between theory, and achieving the goal in practice, has equally-always been huge.
I’ve been passionate about archery since I shot my first arrow from a self-made bow at age eight. What makes me tick, apart from crafting the bows and arrows myself in a creative, ever-challenging process tied into global history, is bowhunting. Strictly target shooting, especially with store-bought equipment, holds little more fascination than watching a clock tick. Bowhunting is something else altogether. Some of my most intense experiences ever come from it. If I couldn’t archery hunt, I’d leave bows and arrows behind real fast.
Listening to jazz. I appreciate its influence and history, I respect it, I admire the people who can play it, but I just can’t get into listening to it.
Yeah, I went from claiming my favorite genre of music was “anything but country” in middle school to appreciating a select number of country artists. But I cannot figure out jazz.
My taste in music seems to radically change in periods of just a decade. Soul music and jazz in my late teens and early 20’s. Pop through my 30’s. new age pop in my 40’s country in my 50s and now back to rock and roll and classical in my 60’s.
Playing the drums, and also the electric guitar. I just got too impatient. I wanted to play (even simple things) with other people, not spend hours practicing rudiments and boring chords. I know that’s how you have to learn, but I think I would have done better if I could have gotten involved with classes where they put beginners on different instruments together and let them play simple stuff so we can feel like we were making music instead of just noodling. (One of my instructors returned my guitar and taught me to play some Alice Cooper songs–that was awesome! But sadly, it didn’t last.)
Motorcycling. I love motorcycles. I love looking at them. I love tweaking macho dudes who express surprise that a woman would ride a GSX-R1000 or a Harley Softtail. I love the idea of riding them. But I don’t particularly enjoy the actual act of going for rides. I finally admitted I was deluding myself a few months back and sold my bike, and I’ve never missed it.
Ditto with tweaking the macho dudes, fun! I’ve ridden all over the country, multiple times. Lived and breathed riding for 42 years, but as my abilities started to wane it became less and less fun, so I stopped riding and sold off my bikes and gear. Don’t miss it a bit.
Kind of like the premise of the OP, sometimes there are hobbies we love, then we stop loving them.