Manly Hobbies

This week, the Art of Manliness had a good article on 45 Manly Hobbies.

On the list that I do [at least a little]:

• Reading
• Ballroom dancing
• Marksmanship
• Martial arts
• Alcohol/Cigar/Pipe smoking connoisseur
• Learning a foreign language
• Blogging

I especially liked the story about an electrical engineer who took up blacksmithing as a hobby. This story was popular enough that a follow-up article by another blacksmith was posted later. Call it the Office Space effect, many men find white-collar office jobs emasculating and unfulfilling. One way to counter this is not to have that kind of job. Or, if you do, you can take up a hobby to help.

I am fortunate to have the blue-collar white-collar job as a process engineer. Where I work, engineers are expected to be hands on with whatever machine or assembly line they work with. For me, one of the hardest things is to let go of a process and let the techs and operators do their thing, because it means I have to become more isolated from the actual business of making things. There are engineers who never work apart from a desk and monitor, so I am fortunate in this regard.