Stitching It All Together: Making Peace with Hobby Overload
- Joseph R. Goodall
- Oct 5
- 4 min read
Do you ever find yourself fatigued or stressed out after doing something that is supposed to be restful? Worn down by your need to accomplish or make a difference? Exhausted by cultural narratives of gloom or very real threats to the flourishing of humans and the rest of the natural world?
In these swirls, even my "leisure time" feels swept into the drive to create something that intertwines all the pieces of my life into a coherent whole, to express who I am and how the world is, yet also how I long for us to connect and grow and heal.
Maybe you can relate to the thoughts I shared in an essay recently published by The Masters Review, part of a series in which writers share how they find inspiration for their writing through hobbies and other activities. I've included an excerpt below, and hope you will check out the rest here.
Through wrestling with the tension between community-building, productivity and creative pursuits, I truly believe hobbies are not an exclusive playground for the well-off, retirees or people with their "head in the sand." They are both personal and communal, tools for developing hope, our voices and passions, and for strengthening our community. The essay features my foray into making crochet art while watching movies, studying how my desire to weave a common thread and thought-provoking message through the things I love sometimes backfires. Through listening to the frustration and seeking a change of perspective, I've found that somewhere within the tangled web of aspirational multitasking there is still a place of rest, a way to share with others.
In a fortunate turn of events, this essay overlapped with my first opportunity to share my crochet work in a local art show! Agrarian Memory is a wool and cotton crochet tapestry inspired by calming landscape scenes, overlaid with the friction between land stewardship and extraction, ownership and relationship, rest and productivity. Hebrew Bible scholar Ellen Davis describes agrarianism as "a way of thinking and ordering of life in community that is based on the health of the land and of living creatures.” Remembering or "re-membering" may allow us to slow down, deflate our ego, and orient ourselves within our environment as partners in care.
Check out the essay excerpt below, plus photos of the art show and the book and movie inspiration behind it!
Recently I crossed a laughable threshold in my complicated relationship with hobbies. On the evening in question, I was watching Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 film, High and Low, in which a gruff Japanese shoe executive is on the phone with his son’s alleged kidnapper. It was an intense, expertly blocked, black-and-white scene, captioned below with English subtitles. But my attention was split between the midcentury thriller and a colorful crochet project on my lap, my hands busy weaving wool yarn with a golden hook into a multi-layered wall hanging. When I fished for the remote to rewind the movie, my wife surveyed me with a smile and shook her head. I shrugged with feigned exasperation, continuing to twist double crochet stitches as I craned my neck to read the next line of dialogue.
For me, enjoyable pastimes can sometimes become muddled and overwhelming as I juggle many interrelated interests with a strong desire to contribute toward a larger community. As a writer with an analytical mind and a full-time engineering job, making things “for fun” requires research, immersion, and consideration of how to involve others in my “side projects.” In this way, watching movies, crafting crochet pieces, exploring urban spaces, gardening with native plants or studying history can take on dimensions that to others (and sometimes myself) seem like “unnecessary work.” Yet as I’ve wrestled with this tension of rest and enrichment, I’ve come to recognize my intertwining, involved hobbies as means of expressive exploration—passion projects closely tied to my multi-hyphenate personhood.
. . . I want people to experience a taste of this from my work—not just acquiring a “cultural commodity,” but finding a pathway to awareness, appreciation and examined living. Film critic Josh Larsen compares watching movies to praying. Cinema gives shape to our truest imagination and deepest yearning, offering room for contemplation.
In a similar way, crocheting is like prayer for me. Sometimes the forms are utilitarian and plain, others are bold and aspirational, but always they are tactile, personal and formative.
Please enjoy the entire essay at The Masters Review, which is featured alongside writer and professor Hector Dominguez's account of taking road trips to clear his head and find inspiration for his writing.
Agrarian Memory is featured in Avondale Art Alliance's "Material Expressions" show, running from September 20 to October 25, 2025 in Avondale Estates, GA. You can view the incredible work from other local textile, glass and ceramics artists on this website.
Joey, I admire you so much. Your writing and your art are inspiring and your care for creation is as well. And by the way, thank you for helping Freddie put things away this morning after the potluck. He sometimes feels that nobody notices all the work that he does.❤️