Disability and the Art of Hobby Maintenance

After several years of processing and waiting, the United States Government has decided to agree with a panel of doctors and medical professionals, and has declared that I have indeed been attacked by several traitorous organs and am not capable of sustainable, “meaningful employment”.

In other words, I am disabled.

This is an interesting thing to be in the United States right now. We are largely governed by venture capital bros who believe in meritocracy above and beyond anything else, and the meritocracy crowd doesn’t look too keenly on disability. The feeling is that if you are disabled, that you are a drain on society, even though I have been working and paying into the system full time, often with a second job, since 1984.

That’s 42 years. And somehow, I’m struggling internally with being entitled to benefits that I have been paying in to my entire damned life.

So, what does that have to do with hobbying? At the end of the day, everything.

I have about three, sometimes four, good hours of energy every day. Hence, the not being able to sustain a profession bit. Of that three to four hours, I have to exercise for at least 30 minutes, if not an hour, or the vein feeding my liver could collapse and kill me, since my abdomen is so jacked up after five surgeries that there’s no way to fix that vein without potentially killing me.

Defusing the bomb is as dangerous as the bomb.

Doing my hobby helps me turn off the gibbering horde that takes up residence in my psyche, the Doomsday Chorus that likes to remind me that every day is potentially borrowed time. That’s fine, though. I’ve had a remarkably cool life and have very few regrets.

That doesn’t stop the Gibbering Horde, though. Painting, on the other hand, does. So… I paint. Literally, I paint, therefore I am.

I am calmer, I am more at peace with this stage of my life, and I am able to focus on adoring my wife and rejoicing in my time on this (currently burning) rock as it careens about the universe.

There is a lot to be said about hobbies and mental health. And there is a lot to be said about stilling those voices that influence us and steer us away from our better selves. This has led me to deleting my social media accounts, stepping away from the podcast I have been part of for 18 years, and fine-tuning my YouTube content to exclusively hobby based channels.

It’s been liberating. And because of that liberation, those few hours of energy that I have became more restorative. Every brush stroke or assembled figure is a hard-won symbol of serenity for me. A sign that I am weathering my own personal storm, and maybe can show the way for others struggling as well.

The hobby, as it is, can be maddening. There’s a million people out there screaming about “the meta”, and debating the merits of this list, that model, the new game system that’s potentially going to pull a David on the Goliath in Manchester. It doesn’t have to be this way.

We can find peace in our wargames, as ironic as it feels to say that.

I hope you all find some time to rejoice in our hobby today, to escape our grim reality and fire off some joyous endorphins with whatever worlds bring you happiness. It’s an amazing hobby, full of amazing people.

Thanks for stopping by. Be good to yourselves, and happy hobbying!