Behind every closet door lurks a confused mess

When people jump head first into project after project, drop a ton of cash on it, fill up their spare bedroom with hobby paraphernalia, only to grow increasingly estranged from their endeavor and abandon it a month later, something’s off.

Psychologists might chalk this behavior up to lack of commitment, indecisiveness or attention deficit disorder. One study even found that an abundance of abandoned hobbies was a telltale symptom of internet addiction.

Here’s my theory.

If behind every closet door there lurks a confused mess, then there’s something much darker going on. Underneath all that boredom might be an ocean of despair.

Kierkegaard, widely considered to be the original gangster of existential philosophy, addressed this issue in his magnum opus. He used the metaphor of crop rotation to describe this manic behavior. He said it was a vulgar and intrinsic effort to overcome boredom by constantly seeking new stimulation in the external world.

That’s why people with too many hobbies end up dissatisfied no matter what they do. If too many things are important, none of them are.

Kierkegaard said that the true rotation method comes in changing the crop and the mode of cultivation.

Here we have at once the principle of limitation, the only saving principle in the world. The more you limit yourself, the more fertile you become in invention.

One character you might know comes to mind. Kramer, the hipster doofus neighbor on the greatest sitcom of all time. There’s a thought provoking book about the philosophy embedded in each Seinfeld character, and here’s the passage that struck me:

Kramer has endless jobs, preoccupations, and breadless arts with which he has occupied himself. He wards off boredom with these fleeting commitments, and never truly faces himself, lost as he is in the spectacle of the moment, of the interest du jour. And when it ceases to be of interest to him, it ceases to be of value to him, so it is abandoned.

This character makes for amazing television. Kramer merely had to walk into his neighbor’s apartment, and the entire studio audience would erupt in applause.

But in real life, this is not an aspirational character. When we have no moderating influence on our hobbies and buy endless supplies for projects that will never start or finish, it absolutely breaks my heart. Because I have done that myself too many times.

Our heart is in the right place. We want to create meaning and find joy and embrace our passions, but somewhere along the way, our primitive brain hijacked our heart in favorite of keeping boredom and despair at bay.

What hobbies are you using to avoid truly facing yourself?