Bob Recotta Communications

Like everyone else, I have hobbies. Eight hobbies, to be exact.

I recently did a hobby inventory, and before you ask, yes, it did involve a spreadsheet, but that’s a different flavor of crazy for a different post. 

When all was said and done, I calculated that I had 11 activities I enjoyed enough to consider hobbies. That seemed excessive to me, so I demoted some of them to stuff I like and might do once or twice before I die but probably not, or SILAMDOOTBIDBPN.(Not a bad acronym. Even my errors are correct.)

Disc golf, for example, was an easy hobby to demote. I haven’t played in at least two years. But on a nice spring day, if all my chores are done and I’m not taking part in any of my eight hobbies, I might just bang (or more likely, miss completely) the chains again.

Ball golf was long ago demoted to something I’ll probably only do at a pitch-and-putt and maybe not even then. (What else would go in that category? Maybe that’s an unnecessary subfolder.)

I also removed reading and listening to music as hobbies because that’s like saying breathing or eating are hobbies, but that reminds me that cooking is a legitimate hobby, one I didn’t put on my list, so we’re back up to nine.

Having nine hobbies is unsustainable as a normal adult living in the mid-early 21st century who has less than 10 hours a week for leisure. 

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Now that I know my brain a little better, it’s clearer why I have a closet full of Magic cards, comic books, golf clubs and unplayed video games (Yes, I have the hobbies of 14-year old boy. But I also garden and cook, so I also have the hobbies of a 75-year old. It averages out.) 

The number one symptom of ADHD on the ADHD website is difficulty focusing. Apparently this doesn’t just apply to work or conversations or love making. It also bleeds into my Bob Time.™

Recent research suggests that there is a correlation between ADHD and a dysfunctional dopamine system. Dopamine is part of the human body’s reward system. According to the Cleveland Clinic, evolution has designed the human body to seek out activities that cause our brain to release dopamine. Our brain squirts out the feel-good juice when we’re doing something pleasurable, causing us to want to do that activity again, and a loop is born.

Except people with ADHD don’t produce enough dopamine. This can cause them to chase the dopamine dragon, seeking out activities that release that sweet, sweet dopamine. They find an activity they like. They hyperfocus on it.

Before long, however, the amount of dopamine released gets less and less. You’re not so into learning how to macramé any more, but collecting autographs sounds like fun. Let’s try that.

And another hobby is set aside.

The wheel keeps turning.