Rediscovering Joy: How to Revitalise Hobbies You Loved as a Child.

When I was nine years old, I was what we would call in my school a ‘sweat’. A swot. A neek. To put it quite simply, all of my hobbies were annoyingly uncool. I would read like my life depended on it, devouring Agatha Christie novels from my mom’s collection when they were barely age-appropriate. I thrived in creative writing classes. I vividly remember writing a description of a man with his head cracked open and describing the injury as a ‘bowl of spaghetti’, with the blood being the sauce on the noodle hair. I listened to the KERRANG music channel which was always playing in our living room. I had a poetry book where I would write frankly awful poems. I knitted and I sewed, even if I was terrible. They may have been horrifically unpopular hobbies for a nine-year-old girl to have, but I had them. I loved them.

Unfortunately, I had to go through the harrowing rite of passage which is secondary school and face the realisation that dawns upon almost all tween girls. I realised it wasn’t okay to be uncool. After constant unpleasant remarks and feeling of being the weird kid who had a massive mark on her forehead that said “STAY AWAY”, I started to drop the hobbies one by one. I didn’t read a book for years, just about getting through ones we had to popcorn-read in English. I didn’t write stories outside of school and was intensely embarrassed when they were read out or put on the board for all to see. I stopped talking about music. Completely. Amidst all of the chaos of being a stressed out, hormonal teenage girl, I somehow eradicated all of my interests.

It was until my 17th birthday that I truly realised the damage that had been done. I had slowly managed to pick reading back up but struggled to concentrate. I hadn’t touched a pen or paper in ages. My music taste had become muddled and confused, and despite studying fashion, I had lost my passion for sewing. Instead, my free time was spent buried in my part-time job and constantly refining my college coursework. It was no real way to live. I had lost that spark and that joy. It felt like I had a tether to all of these activities and pastimes, but they had become incredibly strained. 

When people say that a book changed their life, I know it sounds like complete and utter rubbish. Most of the time, it is. Don’t believe every gym lad who says Atomic Habits changed his life because I can tell you he is absolutely lying. But, there was one book that I read that actually transformed my mindset and I find myself longing to read it it every once in a while. That book was ‘On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft’ by Stephen King. Part memoir, part guide and part advice, the book depicts King’s life story and connection to writing. It wasn’t necessarily the tips or tricks that King gives in the book about writing, but it was instead the passion that he wrote with, and the clear love and adoration he had for the art.

That book reminded me of the joy that I once felt, not just when I wrote, but when I would listen to music I really loved, when I sewed, or when I read gripping mystery novels. It convinced me to try and find that spark again. So, I powered through the typical hobby list you see on Pinterest. I tried learning a language and failed completely. I tried cross-stitch, and now spend at least an hour working on it daily. I tried ballet and wanted to cry. I came to university and started writing articles for The Gryphon, just like the one you’re reading now, and reminded of why I fell in love with writing all those years ago. I went to [REDACTED] society and thought that I might start completely hating music again if I ever went back.

There is no clear answer on how to revitalise joys from childhood because sometimes they can feel just like that: childish. You have to remember though, if you can, that happiness you once felt from doing something simple. It isn’t wrong to be childish. Make awful paintings that look like chicken scratch and have come straight of nursery. Dance like a five-year-old. Sing terribly. Write convoluted stories that make zero sense. As long as you feel that passion and that tiny little fire in your heart switch on, you’re doing the right thing. Like Stephen King said in his magical book, “you can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.” Find that juvenile confidence and start.

Words by Jess Cooper