[Nicolai P. Zwar]

As I said, I sure do lots of (regular) activities distinct from professional work, but I am not sure they are hobbies.
I suppose it depends on what you view as a “hobby”, I don’t think all past times are necessarily “hobbies”. Take music for example. I enjoy music, I obviously enjoy it enough to have amassed a large music collection with thousands of albums over the decades (far more than most, but not as much as some), I enjoy it enough to have read books about it, and to discuss it online on various forums over the years… but is it a “hobby”? Some might say it is (which is fine, of course), other might not, I guess it depends on your point of view.

I consider “music” a vital piece of human existence, music is like bread or wine or literature or enjoying sunshine, or swimming… and I suppose you could consider all these activities, music, eating bread, drinking wine, reading books, or sunbathing as “hobbies” if you are so inclined or if they are done at the expense of all other things.
Yet many people who know me, colleagues, neighbors, etc., have no idea I enjoy music or what kind of music or that I know anything about classical or film music. Because even though I love and enjoy music, I love and enjoy many other things as well, I don’t steer discussions in the direction of music, and I don’t mention music in discussions unless it’s a warranted subject. So while music is very important to me, very important even, it’s not necessarily something that “defines” me… there are phases where I hardly get to listen music, where I perhaps even listen to less music than some other people for whom music is less relevant, simply because I don’t listen to a lot of music “in the background” (though sometimes I do that to).

For me, a hobby is perhaps something that is done more diligently (though some might argue that the meticulous way I have curated digital musical files could be considered “diligent”). Of course, music can be a hobby, just like food can be a hobby, or wine can be a hobby, or swimming can be a hobby, on the other hand, listen to music but is it a hobby? I eat food but I’m no foodie, I drink wine but I’m not really an expert or connoisseur, and love swimming, especially in open water, but I’m not a trained athlete and only get to do it sporadically, so for me it wouldn’t feel right to call any of these a “hobby”. Perhaps because if I would say “swimming is a hobby”, people would expect me to swim a lot more than I actually do, if I would say “wine is a hobby” or “food is a hobby”, people wouldn’t expect me to be as ignorant about these as I really am.