Image by the author, of the author’s bookshelf. Bonus points if you can actually identify how many hobbies/projects/careers are represented in these 8 shelves…

Is It Really Collecting Hobbies? Or Is It Darker Than That?

How a philosopher I never read might have skewered my psyche

“Too many hobbies” is almost certainly in the top five Tropes of ADHD. Put simply, we have a tendency to hear about some occupation, craft, skill, or quest, and our minds latch onto it: I want to do that.

It doesn’t really matter if we have ever done anything like it before, or if we are socially, financially, or personally equipped to take it up.

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This is nothing new, but like many things (especially ADHD traits) the rise of the interwebs exacerbated and enabled the habit. In the early 2000’s, when I was starting to do freelance work on this wild and crazy World Wide Web, my lawyer suggested during a brief phone call that forming an LLC might be a good idea.

When I hung up the phone, I thought “Huh. Well, better do that first…” and with a few clicks and dollars I’d formed an LLC in the state of Delaware.