About Hobbies and Pasttimes

Men naturally become reflective and somewhat introspective at midlife. It's a normal occurrence, but the results that follow from these introspections are sometimes dangerous, or at least dangerously ludicrous - hence the clichéd "midlife crisis," a generic term for a variety of antics middle-aged men occasionally engage in to somehow "prove" that we are still young (we're not), still virile (not something one should wish to prove, at least not in public), still sexy (again, not something one should try to prove).

Fortunately, I have been spared the danger of making such a spectacle of myself by my wife's insistence that my purchase of a sports car in my mid-thirties constituted my midlife crisis, and that I have therefore used up my normal allotment of such silliness. I don't completely agree with her assessment of this, but I also don't believe that I would get anywhere in attempting to argue the point, so there matters lie.

But I digress. This isn't about cars, or other frivolities. It's about hobbies. And the reason that I started this essay as I did is that, at midlife, and being of a reflective nature, I've come to realize that the many things that I thought were so important in life - promotions, job titles, being invited to the right parties - were nowhere nearly as important as my hobbies and pastimes, literally, "things to pass the time." If you're young - and that would be a very good time to read this, since y