#3 - "The Death of Hobbies" by Sherry Ning
Sherry Ning is my favorite writer of 2024
Episode 3 is up, featuring my favorite writer of 2024, Sherry Ning, and her essay "The Death of Hobbies".
In this soul-stirring essay, Sherry distinguishes between pleasure (which is passive) and enjoyment (which requires effort)—and argues that true enjoyment comes from creation and mastery, rather than from mere consumption.
From the essay:
"There is something divine about creating. To bring forth something out of nothing, to have something exist because of you, to leave your mark on the world.... Being able to create is what makes us people."
It’s a rousing call to reconsider our priorities and invest our time and energy in activities that fulfill the human spirit.
Thank you, Sherry, for allowing me to narrate your outstanding essay and turn it into this video:
LINKS
If you enjoy the essay as much as I did, I recommend the following for dessert:
Jerry Seinfeld on mastery + craft:
Neil Postman’s harrowing foreword to Amusing Ourselves to Death:
As always, thank you for listening!
-Jonathan Stern
@jonathanrstern
Thank you! This is so thoughtful and well-written, it’s like you read my mind because I was definitely inspired by Postman’s “amusing ourselves to death” when writing that