Colm O'Regan: What do you do for fun, a hobby — when no one's watching?
Columnist, broadcaster, comedian and author Colm O'Regan pictured in the Maryborough Hotel. Picture Chani Anderson
It’s not immediately obvious when one of the children has been working at my desk. It’s not the mess because it was a mess anyway.
It’s that they are way more productive than I’d ever be. Children who are up to something are so industrious.
In this case, there are sheets of paper with bits cut out of them and names written on bits cut out.
“Jane Goodall” is written on a few bits of paper and then crossed out. The answer is in their room.
The wall above the youngest’s bed is festooned with a load of home made posters of in honour of famous women.
Simone Biles is there. There’s a pretty good drawing of her along with “Now 28” (her age, not the compilation album), “Clap Clap”, “Olympics”, “11 Medals!”.
Taylor Swift is there of course. “1989” “Shake it off”, “Nashvin” (sic) are written around her.
Jane Goodall isn’t finished so I’m looking forward to seeing her 60-year career among the primates summarized.
What I love about it most is not my daughter’s drawing or handwriting. (Although it’s better than YOUR daughter’s drawing or handwriting — if it’s not, your daughter had HELP, OK?)
It’s the complete lack of self-consciousness about just sitting down and making something.
In another room, my other daughter is just practicing her dancing. She’s just discovered J-Lo’s Jenny from the Block. She’s not performing for any audience. Just practicing her steps.
It’s not for public consumption — unless your father is a columnist stuck for a topic. It’s activity for its own sake.
It’s not inhibited by concerns around ability, or confidence. I am so jealous. Imagine just making things without giving a shite!
In the tale of the Garden of Eden, there’s a lot of fuss made of the whole sin thing. The disobedience, the apple; the temptation, the serpent; having the farm taken off you.
But one of the understated points of the story is the birth of shame.
Fluting around the garden with flutes all over the place. But they ate the apple and got self-conscious about their bits.
I suspect that if they’d managed to even avoid the apple for another week, they would not be at all self-conscious about little home crafting projects or dancing like no one was watching.
They would definitely not have any writer's block or hyperactive internal editors.
Even though the snake is condemned to crawl on his belly — it’s not clear how he travelled around before — there is no sense the snake is all self-conscious about things.
No, the shame and embarrassment only happens to humans.
I think of my own hobbies and it’s a question that it’s worth asking ourselves, especially (but not only) if you work in the self-employed-y, create-y, bullsh*t-y space.
What do you do for a pure hobby? When no one’s watching. No competitions, no likes or comments or shares.
I definitely have things I do just for me. Doomscrolling the news from the Donetsk or the Trumps' latest Nero-esque escapade.
Looking up Google Street View to see if I can tell which house on the road mentioned in the news was the one seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau to see if you can spot the signs (usually a former corpo house with a panic room and helipad).
But inspired by the children, I’m going to try and make things for their own sake: A jigsaw; draw a vase; anything.
For my daughters. I know at some point some snake is going to make them feel really self-consciousness for the first time.
The first thing I can do is make sure that snake isn’t me.
- Colm tours The Colm Before The Storm this Spring — tickets for Limerick Kilkenny, Galway, and Cork at linktr.ee/colmregan
