When did you last lose yourself? When did you last put aside your practical and existential to-do lists and just get lost in the moment? When was the last time you set down your phone and did not know what time it was, what the latest Tik Tok trend was, what every text thread was occupied with? When did you last get lost in baking, sewing, gardening, or anything else that lets your mind rest from its daily chatter?
As a child, my school teacher aunt supplied me with limitless stacks of construction paper and safety scissors. I could spend hours spreading shapes and scraps across her living room floor, making faces and collages and coloring scenes. It was pure creativity — no goal or function — just the joy of keeping my hands humming.
It’s easy to lose that childhood joy. Creativity becomes classwork becomes tests becomes deadlines becomes performance reviews. Time is taken quickly and side hustles demand a profit.
I never grew out of this need to create — construction paper faces became a career in filmmaking and video production. But most of my work days today are occupied with emails and Slack messages. My hands sit idle and my brain can trip over the worries all too easily. I need tactile projects, work that takes my brain to the off-ramp of the “What Do I Do Next” freeway.
Owning an old house helped. I taught myself carpentry and built new kitchen cabinets. I learned to tile and transformed a bathroom. Some light electrical training and I’ve added new circuits. But remodeling is pricey and ultimately finite. Every room has been remodeled. I can’t keep wallpapering closets.
So I’ve returned to the construction paper days of my childhood in search of a new hobby. A pack of acrylics and brushes and canvas and I’m throwing myself at painting — in part to fill blank walls, but also to help a busy mind go blank instead.
When was the last time I lost myself? Probably the other week as I painted an abstract bull for my kitchen, letting myself brush one color over another without judgment, asking only “Do I like how this ear looks?” What a gift to myself!
For the next few weeks at Grotto Network, we’ll be exploring the joys of hobbies. The activities and interests that can free us from the demands and expectations of a busy world, that can connect us to passionate communities, that can unlock new discoveries of ourselves, and bring us closer to the God who — as we learn in the first sentences of the Bible — was a creator before all else.
What’s your hobby? Let’s explore together.
— Javi Zubizarreta
Director
