doing it for the love of the game

How do you draw the line between a hobby and an employable skill?

For me, that line has always been fuzzy. For many writers, that line probably barely exists.

From a young age, I have always been acutely aware of how my interests and hobbies translate into social or human capital—ironically, because I didn’t have many that didn’t have a clear connection to a future career path. After all, movies and TV shows are under the category of “entertainment” for a reason, right?

When I started working on my project about sitcoms (and yes, I’m still working on it), someone told me that I was “shooting myself in the foot” by turning my enjoyment into research.

That’s partly true. I sometimes find myself getting fatigued after spending so much time with TV shows for both my work and my academic research.

But in my free time during the holidays, a strange pocket of time/non-time, I finally started catching up on shows I hadn’t watched. Not for work, not for research, but—as I like to put it—for the love of the game.

Interestingly, television isn’t the first time I’ve experienced this. My first love before anything else had always been reading.

I was a voracious reader as a child. There was a small library next to the house where I used to take piano lessons, and every weekend, I’d go to the library and pick out books in the teen section until, at one point, I had read every single available one.

As I got older, reading for school and for SAT prep became my top priority. In fact, I felt ashamed to be caught reading anything that wasn’t related to school. Even now, as I finish up my last semester of college, I struggle to find the time or motivation to read for myself between my writing work.

But one piece of advice that completely changed my perspective is that to be a great writer, you also have to read great writing. And to be a great writer, you have to find something you’re passionate about other than writing.

Of course, that makes so much sense from a million-mile perspective. But for a long time, I was scared to indulge myself in the practice of reading. With the rise of AI and the decline of literacy, I have found myself more determined to continue reading—whether it’s comics, trashy queer romance books, essay collections, or analytical writing about the entertainment industry.

Reading from such a wide variety of genres also helps me combat the idea that reading is for the sole purpose of building social capital. Obviously, reading is building my knowledge and education. But also by reading trash queer romances and comics, I’m letting myself read primarily for enjoyment, for “the love of the game.”

Reading isn’t the only thing that I want to continue doing for "the love of the game.” Something that I recently told my therapist is that when I’m not doing well, I feel like I’m lost in the woods, and I can’t find a way out because all the trees look the same.

As cliché as that may sound, I find that metaphor helpful in illustrating why enjoyment sometimes feels impossible. When I’m in the woods, I’m only familiar with the sense of dull disappointment that has haunted me for a very long time.

The possibility of something other than the woods, other than the sensation of pushing ahead through the pain to get things done, is almost more terrifying than staying lost. While many factors in my life complicate the pursuit of happiness, I don’t want myself to become one of the obstacles to achieving joy.

I want to allow myself to indulge in things that make me happy, not because it’s productive or increasing my capital, but because they make me happy. I want to let myself become obsessed with writing and also get obsessed with reading, watching shows, sewing, making zines, going to concerts, and collecting CDs, DVDs, and other media that people deem outdated.

In fact, I think we could all do a little more with letting ourselves just get obsessed with something and doing things purely out of love.

In the New Year, I don’t have a lot of resolutions, but I do want to keep reminding myself to do things for the love of the game. Maybe one day, it won’t be a reminder anymore—just second nature.