Consumed by Their Hobbies

Nearly one-fifth of Americans are hard-core hobbyists, hyper-focused zealots whose pastimes edge into obsession.

They include the amateur musician who performed a Renaissance music concert the day she returned home from the hospital after giving birth; the attorney who tries to schedule morning court appearances to leave afternoons free for rock climbing, and the corporate vice president who gets up at 4 a.m. each day to ride horses before starting her 11-hour workday.

At every free moment, and sometimes in their dreams, these folks scheme to get better and set increasingly difficult goals. They wring more from 24 hours than the rest of us. In effect, they balance two careers, one that brings money and another that sustains their soul.

Neighbors shake their heads; spouses roll their eyes. Parents are apologetic, if sometimes proud.

You either admire them or think they’re loony.

Scientists don’t know why one person develops a passion and another doesn’t. They cannot explain why some of us crave immersion in an activity while others would rather crack a beer and wield the TV remote. It’s a question, however, being given serious study.

One school of thought believes an individual’s dedication springs from a complex blend of psychological factors--a hunger for stimulation, autonomy, meaning and sense of community. But others speculate that, in fact, there may be a genetic basis for why people latch on to an activity--an evolutionary payoff for obsessiveness and risk-taking.

If we could unlock this mystery, say experts, the applications would be numerous. Imagine the education system if students tackled schoolwork as enthusiastically as kids play video games. With this in mind, researchers have embarked upon a study of motivation at UCLA’s International Center for Talent Development.

People with compelling interests live longer, healthier and happier, say scientists studying their behavior. Having a hobby provides inner equilibrium and relief from everyday stress.

But there can be a toll. Enthusiasts steal hours from family time or drain income. Or they feel edgy on vacation, devoid of their usual routines. At times, their hobbies threaten relationships.

With an emerging interest in so-called positive psychology, scientists have become increasingly fascinated with such topics as happiness and motivation, as well as physical and intellectual stimulation. Is a passion constructive, offering meaning and purpose? Or is it an escape, robbing an individual of time spent in more significant relationships?

When a topic in any field draws interest, a name is sure to follow. In this case, University of Calgary professor Robert Stebbins coined the term serious leisure. His research indicates that nearly 20% of Americans engage in serious leisure.

“Serious leisure compensates for what work doesn’t give; it provides the opportunity to lose yourself and to grow as an individual,” said Robert Mannell, a professor in recreation and leisure studies at the University of Waterloo in Ontario.

A Life Built Around a Musical Obsession

Tricia Jordan, 55, plays music by 14th through 17th century composers on such Renaissance-era instruments as the cornetto.

“All the thoughts in my mind stop. I get totally immersed in the music. I don’t tell my fingers what to do, my hands are on automatic,” said Jordan, who works as a computer teacher in a private school. “It’s as good as sex.”

She plays with a different Renaissance group five days a week. Because of the time consumed by her music, she gets about four hours of sleep a night.

At times, when she’s practiced a composition, she’ll dream about it. In those dreams, she floats through the air like smoke. She moves up and down with the melody, first with the soprano line, then drifting with the bass.

Jordan began playing piano when she was 4, and studied music at UCLA. But it wasn’t until she was a young mother, sick in bed with hepatitis, that she started playing the recorder and discovered Renaissance music.

Soon she was practicing between four and six hours a day. Two years later, she came home from giving birth to her second child and played in a concert, sitting on a doughnut-shaped pillow. Her music became a source of friction with her husband. Ultimately, it cost her a marriage, which ended about 18 months after she started playing the recorder. She has no regrets.

Now, with her children grown, Jordan drives from her Mount Washington house to Claremont on Mondays for a quintet; Redondo Beach on Wednesdays; Whittier on Thursdays and Saturdays; and Culver City on Sundays, where she sings alto in a vocal group. Her second husband, who plays bassoon, dulcian (a forerunner of the bassoon), and shawm (predecessor to the modern oboe), joins her for all but the singing. For vacations, the couple attends music workshops.

She has scarcely any free time. Her social life revolves around these groups. Jordan has played in the Monday evening quintet for 30 years. On Thursday evenings, she sees the most progress in her cornetto playing, plus the puns are lightning fast and the jokes are the funniest.

Jordan figures the cornetto will challenge her for another five years. She’s already mastered the shawm. Next, she might tackle the rebec, a stringed instrument that predates the violin.

“When I pick up the horn and make a sound, and if today is better than yesterday, that’s all I need,” Jordan said.

People like Jordan have a greater need for stimulation than, say, your average couch potato, according to Howard Tinsley, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Florida.

But Tinsley found that wasn’t all that drew individuals to various hobbies. In one study, Tinsley analyzed the responses of 3,771 individuals who participated in a recreational activity. Not surprisingly, many participants said physical exertion or exercise was an important benefit. But the second most commonly cited perk was social involvement.

In mastering a skill, Jordan also gained a community of fellow devotees. Tinsley and others theorize that part of what attracts people to an activity is the sense of belonging, the feeling of relatedness--even when the activity may be intensely personal and individualistic.

A potter, for instance, might spend hours alone in his studio, but he’ll meet with other ceramic masters at a show, or discuss new tools over coffee.

In part, people derive pleasure from a hobby because it provides a sense of autonomy and control, Tinsley said. At work, most people are supervised and required to perform certain tasks. Serious leisure, however, is a choice.

“People need to feel like they’re making the decision,” Tinsley said. “That distinguishes work from leisure; we perceive ourselves as having more choice with leisure.”

Serious leisure doesn’t mean watching television; it requires effort and commitment. In some cases, it can mean constant training.

“Passion is the key ingredient to engagement; it’s why you do what you do and it’s how you do what you do,” said Tara Scanlon, a UCLA professor of psychology and director of the International Center for Talent Development. She has studied more than 1,000 youth athletes in an effort to determine why some dedicate themselves and others drop out of a sport.

Commitment is related to enjoyment, she said. “It’s having the desire and determination to continue or persist in an activity over time.”

A Passion for Ceramics Put Balance in His Life

Doug Louie used to come home after work and think: Isn’t there more to life? Louie, 51, loved his job teaching algebra at a Los Angeles public high school. But weekdays seemed neatly parceled into eight hours at work and evenings off. Days slid by with the monotony of a factory conveyor belt. Louie tried playing piano, then guitar. He even picked up the saxophone. But he hated practicing. He lacked the patience for making jewelry. His painting was awful.

On a whim, he took a ceramics class. He enjoyed feeling his fingers in clay and the inevitable surprises when he opened the kiln to see his glazed crockery. His first mug was exhilarating.

Louie soon realized that ceramics provided balance in his life. “I wouldn’t give up my day job to do this all the time--then the other half would be missing,” he said.

When he’s doing ceramics, Louie’s focus is so great that he’s aware of little else. “If you are working on pots, you lose yourself in it; you zone out and are somewhere else for a while,” Louie said.

Being so immersed in an activity that a person becomes oblivious to the outside world is known as “flow.” The term, conceived by psychologist Mihaly Csikzenthmihalyi, refers to when a person’s mind or body is engaged in a pursuit.

“Flow comes from matching challenges and skills,” said Csikzenthmihalyi, who has researched and written for years about what makes people happy. “When you are in flow, you are not aware of being happy, but afterward, you look back and say it was the happiest time.”

Children easily feel a sense of flow, said Csikzenthmihalyi. But for adults, the process can be more difficult. Based on studies, Csikzenthmihalyi estimates that between 10% and 15% of the population achieve flow every day.

It is not that some sports or activities are more capable of producing flow than others, he said. It’s more a question of an individual finding the right activity. Depending on their jobs, some people achieve flow during work; others are more apt to lose themselves with a hobby.

Defense attorney William Kroger used to take his bike to the top of a mountain and zoom down trails at speeds reaching 40 mph--a risky sport called downhill mountain biking. Then four years ago, Kroger, a wiry 6-foot, 1-inch man, started rock climbing.

“It was just such a rush,” said the 40-year-old West Hollywood resident. “When you are up on the face of a rock, it’s the only thing you can think of. It’s kind of a Zen thing, you are there for the moment. You can’t think of anything else.”

Some scientists, including Dr. Ernest Nobel, believe there may well be a genetic basis to explain why people like Kroger develop a passion for an activity.

Nobel, a professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at UCLA, has studied the genetic basis of alcoholism for more than two decades. In recent years, his focus shifted to include youthful thrill-seekers--kids who, for instance, go bungee jumping or rock climbing.

Such behavior, Nobel maintains, has an evolutionary payoff. Great explorers, for instance, knew they were taking extraordinary risks and went anyway--an action that Nobel characterizes as thrill-seeking.

“There are people who engage in behavior passionately--either constructively or destructively,” Nobel said. “With people who are workaholics or jog 10 miles a day--there’s an important genetic component.”

In the case of alcoholics, Nobel and other scientists say a particular form of the gene called DRD2 may be implicated. With thrill-seekers, Nobel believes the combination of two genes, DRD2 and DRD4, creates a physiological need for the chemical rush that’s experienced during risky behaviors, according to a study of 119 youth published in the American Journal of Medical Genetics.

Nobel estimates that as many as half of thrill-seekers and alcoholics have these gene forms. That means those individuals are born with fewer dopamine receptors in brain areas that have to do with pleasure, Nobel said. Dopamine is a chemical agent that’s released from one neuron to another, creating a pleasure reaction.

“With fewer of these molecules, you don’t feel normal pleasure in life; to feel it, you need to activate these fewer receptors,” Nobel said.

High-thrill behavior, he said, floods the receptors with a lot of dopamine.

Kroger found that climbing was the one activity that allowed him to leave his law work behind and cleared his mind.

Even so, just before each climb, he’d think of his wife and his infant daughter and what would happen if he got hurt. “Then I get into the trance of climbing and everything dissipates,” he said. “It’s an amazing sense of accomplishment, it’s the most basic struggle of man against nature, it’s you against the rock. You are using your mind and body, using muscles you never thought you had.”

Kroger found it enormously satisfying to see his improvement. Gradually, he could tackle harder climbs. “You always try to push a little further than the limits to test ourselves, but not so far that it would cause an accident.”

For his honeymoon in Rio de Janeiro, Kroger toted along a 25-pound bag with his climbing ropes and gear in case he found an opportunity to climb. (He did.)

He began planning climbing expeditions whenever he traveled. When he visited his mother-in-law in Aspen, Colo., he’d climb. He found good climbing spots within driving distance of local courthouses. Whenever possible, he’d plan a morning in court and an afternoon on the rocks. Or he’d take a day off. To help hone his techniques, he took yoga, worked out and frequented a climbing gym with an artificial wall.

“It’s not obsessive,” he said. “It’s a way of life.”