We are living through an epidemic of people who are technically alive but have very little life left in them. We wake up, go to work, answer emails, pay bills, manage relationships, worry about the future and repeat. By the time the day is done, we have enough energy to scroll through our phones before falling asleep. Tomorrow we will do it all over again. We are certainly functioning. But are we having any fun?
Somewhere along the line, adulthood became an elaborate exercise in keeping the machine running. The main quest is to make enough money to sustain yourself, stay employed, maintain your health and build some semblance of a future. Everything else is a side quest.
The term, borrowed from video games, refers to the optional adventures you undertake outside the storyline. In real life, these are things that make you interesting to yourself: learning guitar, taking up pottery, reading fiction, running, cooking something elaborate because you feel like it. They are not necessarily for survival but to make survival worthwhile.
The trouble with this concept is that sidequests require energy most of us are already running on leftover fumes.
After a full day of gruesome work, commuting, domestic responsibilities, and the low-level yet persistent anxiety of living in a world that is slowly but surely consuming itself, the prospect of doing something just for pleasure may feel exhausting. You might want to learn a new language or take a dance class, but wanting to do something and having the bandwidth to do it are two completely different things.
So the hobby remains yet another fulfilled aspiration. The ukulele I bought in 2019 still sits in its case. The book stays unread, and the art supplies gather dust. We slowly become a museum of things we once wanted to do.
When fun becomes work
Instead, we consume leisure. We watch television, scroll through other people’s adventures, and save posts about things we might want to do one day. The sad truth is that it is easier to watch someone else live an interesting life than to muster the energy to build one yourself.
And even if, by some miracle, we do find time, we have managed to make hobbies feel like work.
Everything now must be optimised, tracked and turned into evidence of personal growth. It’s like always walking with a placard saying “Hey, I am doing something other than work. I am interesting. I am better.” Reading comes with annual targets. Running comes with performance metrics and audio guides. Cooking becomes content. A casual interest in photography somehow ends up with a purchase of expensive equipment and the pressure to develop a recognisable aesthetic. Even just being on social media comes with pressure of reach and followers.
We have become so accustomed to measuring the value of time that doing something with the possibility of a tangible return feels irresponsible, like time wasted. What will a hobby teach us, and how can we monetise it and make it a side hustle?
The ancient idea to just try something for the sake of it, even if you are bad at it now, seems radical. I am not denying the material reality of all this. Of course hobbies cost money and free time is not distributed equally. A pottery class is a luxury when you are worried about rent. A relaxed Sunday is harder to come by when you have a job that follows you home, or you have people depending on you. The internet’s endless exhortations to romanticise your life rarely account for the fact that some people, myself included, are sometimes too tired to do anything but get through it. Surviving instead of living, as they call it.
Too tired to feel alive
We have become Zombies, and this comparison feels less like a hyperbole and more like an uncomfortable sign of the times. We have become exceptionally good at meeting our obligations and increasingly unsure what to do with ourselves when those obligations pause. Productivity has become a measure of a life well lived, leaving little to no room for things that serve no purpose beyond making us happy.
And I wish the consequences of it were just a boring personality or an abandoned hobby. When the activities that were supposed to bring us happiness start to feel like chores, when anticipation gives way to exhaustion and our days become an endless loop of work and recovery, we lose something fundamental.
Perhaps this is why the internet is full of so many people trying to rediscover themselves with side quests. We are all looking for small ways to feel like people again rather than employees, consumers, partners, perpetually unfinished self-improvement projects, rather than zombies.
But the answer cannot simply be another challenge, routine or productivity hack designed to squeeze more living out of the hours we have left. Sometimes, what we need is not a better hobby. It is a life that leaves us with enough time and energy to enjoy one. The point of a side quest was never to complete every possible adventure. It was to make the journey more interesting.
If we are too exhausted to leave the main storyline, and too anxious to enjoy the few detours we manage, perhaps we need to build a life where fun becomes fundamental and not an unaffordable extra or a chore that needs to be ticked off a list.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)