Alex Dee's blog

The WACK Hobbies

July 07, 2026 19:40:25 UTC

Recently, I made the decision to cut down on the number of hobbies that I was involved in. I decided to limit this to four hobbies, called the WACK hobbies. They are as follows:

There are various reasons I picked these hobbies and decided to drop others. Let’s examine why.

The Problem

The main problem was that I had too many interests. Without listing all my hobbies, I simply had too many to keep up with, and not enough time and money to keep up with them well. Dabbling in everything also meant that I would make slower progress in the hobbies that mattered to me the most. I therefore had to sit down and decide which hobbies were most important to me. That’s how the WACK hobbies came to be.

I had specific reasons for the inclusion of each hobby. But I also had a few more generalist reasons as well.

Writing

This hobby is one of my favorites. Ever since childhood, I’ve engaged with writing. In a sense, I’ve always found it odd. Everyone else in my family enjoyed reading fiction, however I did not. By the same token, I enjoyed writing fiction, and nobody else in my family did. But I also enjoy writing non-fiction such as these blog posts, something else I do not share in common with anybody else in my family.

Also, since childhood, I’ve wanted to become a published novelist. While I have yet to realize that dream, I have taken steps to try to make that happen. And in the meantime, posting here still means I get to be a self-published writer. That in itself is very satisfying and makes this hobby essential to my identity.

Astronomy

This one also stems from childhood interests. I can still recall when I was a young child living in the forest. There was a span of about a month where I was quite sick. I developed chickenpox that then complicated into bacterial pneumonia. While I was not hospitalized, I was out of school for an extended period. I also had long stretches where sleep was difficult. Since it was winter, my father would sometimes take me outdoors to do some stargazing.

It was during this time that he taught me about the constellation Orion, a very prominent winter constellation where I live. Particularly, the three stars in his belt were the focus of what we were watching one evening. Since then, I learned far more about our night sky and even once had to navigate my way out of a forest at night using only starlight. As such, astronomy has become an extremely prominent hobby as well, and it only makes sense to me that I include it now.

Chess

This stems from yet another childhood interest. I’ll never forget finding a chess set when I was seven years old and pestering my father to teach me how to play the game. He initially declined as he thought I was too young to learn it. However, I was persistent, and he eventually agreed to teach me. This began what was probably the longest chess losing streak in history. For five years, I played chess only against him, and never won a game.

Then, in seventh grade, as part of the math curriculum, everybody had to participate in a chess tournament. Yes, the entire seventh grade. Since I had never won a game, I believed that my skills were poor, and had low expectations for my performance in the tournament. To my surprise, out of 120 students, I placed second. At this point, I thought I was pretty good, and stuck with chess until graduating high school.

Fast forward to today, and I know that as a player, I’m average. But I’m looking to improve. As such, chess makes the cut. I can’t improve if I don’t play. I intend to write a future post documenting my method for trying to improve as well.

Knitting

This is the one hobby that does not stem from my childhood in some way. I only learned to knit in 2021 as a result of the pandemic. Today, it is not common to see male knitters, even if historically most knitters were males. However, it’s a hobby I enjoy nonetheless. I like being able to knit my own hats and other garments as needed. And I want to improve my knitting skills substantially. There’s even potential to leverage this as a secondary income stream later. However, I am not engaging with this hobby with the intent of using it to make money. Once money enters the equation, hobbies change, and I’m not sure yet that I’m prepared for that kind of change.

Knitting has other benefits too. It’s more relaxing than the other hobbies, and more prone to entering a state of flow. It’s also as social or as asocial as I want it to be. Writing is something I’ve deliberately made asocial, chess by definition must be social. You need a second player to evaluate how good you are as a player yourself. Astronomy is something I almost always do alone. As such, knitting provides a nice choice. Thus far, I’ve chosen not to socialize it, but I can change my mind on that later easily if I choose.

What didn’t make the cut

I had many other hobbies which didn’t make the cut for one reason or another. In many cases, I was putting more into the hobby than I was getting back. Amateur radio was one such example of this. After years in this hobby, I realized that I simply wasn’t enjoying it the way I used to. Rather than continuing with this hobby, I decided that my time was better spent elsewhere.

Cycling is also something else that may be considered by some to be a hobby. In my case, I think there’s potential to make that argument. However, my argument is that I consider it more to be a mode of transport and exercise. I bike because I need to get somewhere, or I need to move cargo, or I need some exercise that day. To me, cycling is a means to an end, not an end or a means in itself.

Conclusion

This is something that works for me. This allows me to focus on areas where I want to improve and can measurably do so with tangible benefits. I am not saying that this is something that everyone should or needs to do. This is merely the system that works for me. And picking hobbies that can spell a single syllable pronounceable acronym is nice too. I somehow don’t think I’ll be forgetting the WACK hobbies anytime soon.