The Happy Phalanx

After a prolonged absence from my own blog, I’m back! In fact today’s blog has been inspired by that absence and deals with the problem of finding time to indulge in our hobbies, no matter what they are.

The Problem

Presumably, we chose our hobbies because we enjoy them; whether it is writing, scrapbooking, painting, dance, music, classic car restoration , reading, or whatever we enjoy doing. Unfortunately, many of us find trouble to find the time to actually indulge in them. Our lives get filled up with other obligations, both pleasant and otherwise. For a society that is supposed to have all these time and labour saving devices, we just can’t seem find time to enjoy our pastimes!

The past few months I have struggled to indulge in painting minis as much as I would like to (as well as updating this attempt at a blog). Despite that fact, a few days ago I bought myself even more minis to paint, in the form of Montrose’ Scottish Royalists Starter Army for Warlord Games’ Pike and Shotte. We have recently started playing this at my FLGS (Friendly Local Gaming Store) and I have been enjoying it immensely. In said box set, there are about 400 miniature pikemen, musketeers, highlanders, and cavalry of various sorts, all in 15mm scale. This is despite the fact I am still trying to finish a company of Canadian paratroopers for the game Chain of Command, as well as some Greek and Roman troops to finish up small armies for that group. Oh yeah, and also early Britons/Celts and a few other odds and ends for a few other games as well. And there are also a few minis for another new game we’ve started playing called Mortal Gods. So of course I added over 400 new minis to my to-do list!

In my hobby, we refer to our unpainted minis as our “grey shame”. This is based on the fact that before they are painted the minis are generally molded from grey plastic. I have yet to meet a gamer who did not have a pile of grey shame sitting at home, still waiting the gentle caress of the paint brush. My wonderful wife, who indulges me in this hobby even as she sadly shakes her head at me sometimes, even showed me an interview in which Henry Cavill, possibly the unofficial King of the Nerds, admitted to having a pile of grey shame at home!

So why do we find it so hard to indulge our hobbies? Even my retired friends admit to accumulating minis faster than they can paint them, and even joke about unpainted minis dating back decades! I wish I had a good answer to this problem, but I think it comes down to three things:

Awaiting the Muse

Some people I know have trouble finding inspiration to get started. There are times I find myself staring at my current project and just not knowing where to start. What colours should I use? Do I want to try a new painting technique? What am I painting this mini for, gaming or as a display piece? After staring at my desk for a few minutes without an answer presenting itself, it is easy for me to turn around, power up my computer and play on that rather than painting.

I have found though, that I cannot always wait for the muse to find me, sometimes I just have to get started painting and hope she’ll wander by and help me out. More often than not, this seems to help out, it is just a matter of deciding to to paint, inspired or not!

Being Too Tired

Working is hard and stressful, even if you really love your job! Consequently, getting home at the end of the day, I often don’t feel I have the energy to focus on painting tiny figures. In fact, somedays it is all I can do to stay up and help with dinner! Add to that all the stuff that we have to do as responsible, at least some of the time, adults, and it is quite understandable why we may not feel up to indulging in our hobbies. This is especially the case with easy access to a comfortable couch and a big screen TV! Sometimes all we want to do is stretch out and indulge our inner couch potato…

Being Too Busy

I once heard it said “You should meditate for a half hour each day, unless you’re too busy. If you’re too busy, you should meditate for an hour.” It struck me as something said by someone with either an incredible sense of work/life balance or someone wealthy enough to never have to worry about money! Unfortunately, society today seems to push everyone to always be busy, with constant reminders to always be reachable through smartphones, how you should have a side-hustle, and generally pushing the idea you must always be working. As a result, we struggle to find time to relax with our hobbies, or worse, feel guilty when we do. Too often perhaps, we prioritize other people over our own need for relaxing while doing something we enjoy. I am definitely not saying we become selfish jerks and ignore to people in our lives, but maybe every now and then we need to make some time for ourselves in our busy lives.

The Solution?

Alas, I don’t really have a clear solution to offer here. I mean life is chaotic, messy and stressful and I don’t think anything I say can change that. But I think it is important to remember that we chose our hobbies because we enjoy them. We chose them because we find them challenging, relaxing, rewarding, and worth devoting some of our precious free time to. There are countless (at least for me, my counting skill tops out at about twenty, and that’s if I take my socks off!) articles out there about the benefits of hobbies to reduce stress and improve mental health, and perhaps that can serve as an additional reason for us to make time for our hobbies. In a world where we sometimes may feel so much is out of hands, we chose our hobbies, so why not enjoy them when we get the chance?

So get out there and hobby! Dance, sing, play an instrument, scrapbook, write poetry, play chess, play a sport, restore an old car, or yes, paint minis. Do it for yourself because you enjoy doing it! Do it because you feel a sense of peace and accomplishment as you wield a brush or pen, screwdriver or instrument! Do it because you are so much more than whatever job you may have! You don’t need anyone’s permission to enjoy your hobby, just lose yourself in the moment.

If you do feel you need permission, then I give you full permission to take some time and indulge in your hobby!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I hear my pile of grey shame calling me…