In this video, Nick Kemp dives into the concept of serious leisure—a fascinating idea that blurs the line between work and hobbies. He reflects on his own passion for researching and sharing knowledge about ikigai, explaining how it’s more than just a job or a casual pastime.
When work becomes a passionate pursuit
Nick: Actually, we had a chat a few days ago, about the subject. You actually said to me, what I do is a form of serious leisure. And it did get me thinking, yeah, I'm very passionate and dedicated to my research and sharing knowledge about ikigai.
So I guess for me, it is a form of serious leisure. It's not just my work, and it's not just a hobby, it's certainly challenging, and I spent a lot of time and dedication to it. So this idea of serious leisure is fascinating.
And you've just made this distinction, it is different to let's say, a hobby, which we could perhaps define as either a casual leisure, but some people do take their hobbies quite seriously. We often take our work too seriously, we overwork and now with, obviously, working at home and computers and the internet. There is that possibility of working every day.
So I do like this idea of serious leisure. But as you say, I think it is important we keep all things in moderation. It always comes back to your management of energy. Because I imagine, some hobbies where it's, let's say sports-based, you definitely need time to recover. Then if you're gaming is your hobby, well, you don't want to be doing doing too much gaming because that can be very detrimental to your health.