Six underrated hobbies to try out

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Welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition.

Picking up a hobby is no small feat. Trying something new requires time, consistency, and—most important—a spark of inspiration. Today, The Atlantic’s writers and editors answer the question: What is an underrated hobby that you love?

My hobby is less of an activity and more of an appreciation—not so much for the finer things, but for the tinier things. On a shelf near my desk at home, a little blue goose watches me while I work. Next to him sit two porcelain cats, a boiled-wool dog, a stone sandpiper, a mouse carrying a tea light, and a painted coyote. My most recent animal acquisition is a pair of cast-iron Westie bookends, who support the books that are not already propped up by a pair of Holstein cows.

There is nothing I love more than a small animal, and if you cannot have the real thing, my feeling is that you should obtain the statuette. I have always believed this. In my childhood bedroom lives a tiny glass mouse dressed as a detective, four clay rabbits, a rose-quartz elephant, and a wooden donkey—among other friendly figures. With each animal tchotchke comes a memory or a story. A black-and-red rooster reminds me of a perfect vacation in Lisbon. A sheepdog lamp that I discovered while trawling Facebook Marketplace introduced me to a kindly older gentleman whose family raised sheepdogs in rural North Carolina.

Of course, my passion has its hazards. Every new animal procurement comes with an exasperated groan from my boyfriend. Dusting can be tedious. But when you love something, I believe you should surround yourself with it. And when I die, I will be buried in the style of the ancient pharaohs, my sarcophagus laden with ceramic creatures.

— Elaine Godfrey, staff writer

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I can’t say that computer gaming is an underrated hobby, but it might be among people my age (I’m 63). I’ve been playing computer games since 1981; when I surprise younger people with this admission, it’s like they just found out their grandpa has been learning how to breakdance or be a DJ.

I’d recommend two types of games for, shall we say, mature players—even those with busy lives.

I prefer games that demand a lot of focus rather than a lot of flash and action: Role-playing games such as the Fallout series and Baldur’s Gate 3, for example, require you to inhabit a character, roam around in an artificial world, and make difficult moral choices in a kind of “choose your own adventure” approach that involves more than shooting things or chopping up monsters. I also like strategy games such as the XCOM series and large-scale World War II simulations, the type where you have to think about resources and equipment and terrain—and where you can stop playing, go do other things, and come back later.

Playing computer games has been my hobby for decades. It’s a relaxing—and relatively inexpensive—pastime, and I’ve never seen a reason to let age or maturity talk me out of staying with it.

— Tom Nichols, staff writer

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I never thought of myself as an athlete until I found paraclimbing. The first time I climbed was in the midst of my 2021 pandemic malaise; I made it only three-quarters of the way up the wall, and for the next two days, I could barely move. But rock climbing is a sport of perseverance: The more you do it, the better you get—and the more fun you have.

There’s a natural sense of comradery that forms in the gym, whether you’re belaying or sitting around waiting to get on a route. Also, as someone who is a little addicted to my phone, I love that for a few hours each week I am completely unreachable, 30 feet in the air and as removed from the news cycle as possible. The world melts away when I climb.

Paraclimbing will make its debut at the 2028 Summer Paralympics, in Los Angeles, where viewers will get to witness the incredible diversity and adaptability of the paraclimbing community. It’s one of the things I value most about the sport. Blind and visually impaired climbers climb with callers; some climbers with lower-body paralysis or weakness climb with a technique called campusing, relying solely on their arm strength. Some climbers with limb differences climb with prostheses; others don’t. Climbers like myself with cerebral palsy might look different from able-bodied climbers, but no matter how you get up the wall, the destination and the pride of accomplishment are the same.

— Kate Guarino, supervisory senior associate editor

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Being washed-up isn’t all bad. You see, my status as an ambitious has-been tennis player means that I am always trying to relive my glory days, but without my past strength or stamina. And with my condition (I suffer from a severe allergy to running), a lack of cardio had become a pesky obstacle in my attempts to rekindle some of my earlier prowess. Then, five years ago, desperate to trick myself into heaving slightly less on the courts, I discovered boxing.

To be clear, I hit bags—not people. The splendid catharsis I’ve encountered for decades––the one that accompanies the pop of the ball off my tennis racket––now emerges when I hear the smack of gloves on a heavy bag. It’s hard to be new at something again, but it turns out that the positioning, weight transfer, and full-body energy required in tennis easily apply to boxing. Throwing jabs and hooks have also made me a better tennis player: I’m stronger, and my footwork has improved. Now, on the courts, I’m swift like a gazelle—a geriatric one whose knee hurts.

Gaining lung capacity and a new hobby while trying to compete with my former self has been a delightful win, and hopefully, one day, I’ll be good enough to claim washed-up-boxer status too.

— Bhumika Tharoor, managing editor

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If you need a new coffee table, you don’t go out into the woods, chop down a tree, and carve one yourself. Making pizza from scratch can seem a bit like that. In the time your pizza oven takes to get hot enough to crank out a semi-decent pie, you can order Domino’s and have the delivery guy at your doorstep. But here is the paradox of pizza: The classic takeout food tastes so much better if you make it at home.

About once a month, I knead my own dough, portion it out into perfect little tennis balls, and stick it in the back of my fridge. Two days later, it is pizza time! Once stretched on my countertop, each dough is its own carte blanche. I have made pistachio pizza, Indian achar pizza, pesto-and-ricotta pizza, corn pizza, and so, so many margherita pizzas.

In other words, I am a full-on pizza sicko. I have invested in an outdoor pizza oven that can reach 900 degrees, and I’ve consumed hours of pizza-related YouTube videos to up my game. But you don’t need to go to the same lengths to enjoy homemade pizza. My first-ever attempt, borne of sheer pandemic boredom, resulted in a football-shaped pie that would not impress any Italian nonna. Maybe that’ll happen to you too. But even with a creaky home oven, the pizza-making process can feel downright magical. Just dough, sauce, and cheese creates something that is so much more than the sum of its parts. And hey, if everything goes awry, there’s always Domino’s.

— Saahil Desai, senior editor

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Walking a dog for miles every day will lead you nose first into all sorts of shrubs and trees and weeds and flowers. For so long, it didn’t occur to me, a first-time dog owner, that my dog wasn’t barking at the air or rolling in nothing; he heard and smelled things I couldn’t. He participated in a world that I didn’t have access to, one that I wanted to get acquainted with by putting a name to what he dug up, sniffed out, and peed on.

When I first pointed the iNaturalist app (which is free to use) at a bunch of grass, I learned not only that it was bottlebrush grass, a shade-tolerant plant native to areas including the eastern United States, but that this grass is a host for many northern pearly-eye butterflies. When I held the Merlin Bird ID app (basically, Shazam for birdsong) up toward a flock my dog was chasing away, I discovered that they were starlings. Days later, inside an airport near Washington, D.C., I heard familiar chirps, and knew that the small, dark birds flapping against the vaulted windows were starlings too. This is the reward of nature identification. With each plant or animal you first learn by phone and later recognize by sight or sound, even some of the most claustrophobic places can remind you of the immensity of the world.

— Shan Wang, programming director