On the Value of Analog Hobbies

I can't help but think that human beings are operating at a level that is beyond our natural ability to sustain - and we tell ourselves it is normal, or even worse, admirable.

Social media and the 24/7 news cycle had already flooded our nervous systems with more information and comparison than we could reasonably process. Then AI arrived. It’s astonishing in both capability and speed of improvement. In an ideal world, AI would take on some of our mental load so we could slow down and return to being more human. But I suspect the opposite will happen: we’ll use every second, minute, and hour it frees up to cram in even more mental—and emotional—stimulation. It's what we are trained to do.

That’s the trap of the “cult(ure) of growth”. There’s no finish line.

Analog Hobbies - A Quiet Antidote

Analog hobbies offer something increasingly rare: a return to ourselves, to the present, to the imperfect, to the slow, to the natural, to the real. They slow the pace, narrow our focus, and remind us that not everything meaningful needs to be optimized, digitized, or shared. When you plane a wooden board, stitch a piece of leather, or paint on a canvas, the feedback is immediate and honest. There’s no algorithm auto-correcting your mistakes.

Master craftsman Gary Rogowski said it so well "It is my belief that working with our hands is valuable. Connecting with tools to create things offers us a compensation that no electronic calculus can bring. The cacophony that is the Internet keeps us distracted, impatient, anonymous, and searching, but rarely satisfied. When we can see the results of our labor—paring with a chisel; using the needle and thread; creating with paint brush, soldering gun, or pen in hand—there is a different sense of accomplishment. It is a needed blessing in a hurried world to be able to say at the end of a long day, “I did this. Here are the results.” It may only be an attempt to create something that feels solid in a world of impermanence, but this kind of progress means something to me in a day. Perhaps to you as well."

My day job is in the fast‑paced world of business consulting. I work with very intelligent, very motivated people solving million‑dollar problems. But when the working day is done, analog hobbies are my protected space—where there are no clients, no followers, no dashboards. I guard that space fiercely. The most common response I hear when I talk about my hobbies is that I should “start a business and sell my stuff.” Why? Why pollute something so pure and so valuable? Why not let it remain what it’s meant to be? Why not let your bill‑paying job pay the bills?

For me, it’s making things. For others, it might be music, sports, art, exercise, reading books, or time outdoors. The activity doesn’t matter. What matters is giving it the place and importance it deserves.

Hobbies reintroduce patience into our lives. Most analog crafts move at the speed of the raw material. Wood needs time to acclimatize. Glue needs time to cure. Leather needs time to stretch. Paint needs time to dry. There are no shortcuts—and strangely, that’s the appeal. The slowness is the reward. Sure, AI can probably paint a more beautiful picture and (maybe in the future) make a more beautiful piece of furniture. But that's not the point. It can't optimize something you don't give it permission to.

Happy making!