Blowin' in the Wind

Random thoughts on a day when I really should be outside, enjoying the warm sunshine:

We should rearrange our economy (and our work ethic) so that no one has jobs anymore. How much better would life be if all we had was hobbies instead?
Well, yeah, you'd obviously have to make money some way. Like maybe charging people from the busy church next door to park in your driveway, or whatever. But you'd only do it enough to just get by. Then you'd go on to your hobbies.
Hobbies are just so much more fun. Cooking, for example. I'm not enslaved in an endless run of meals and dishes. It's a hobby! Writing? It's not hours of slogging on--forward and backspacing--to the inevitably unsatisfying end. It's a hobby!
There's just something about a hobby that makes anything more bearable. So why not switch to an all-hobby economy? It wouldn't matter so much about the pay, because everyone else would be in the same boat.
Music, nursing, teaching, physics, commercial fishing, even day trading. All interesting hobbies. And I'm sure someone somewhere will want to indulge in his telephone soliciting hobby, or the interesting pastime of analyzing and adjusting insurance rates. As a way to kill some time.

I got onto this subject because it's occurred to me that the reason I don't get more accomplished in my life is that I like to do too many different kinds of things. So then I have trouble settling on the thing that I should get done because--there are so many things. And only so many hours in a day.
If I spend all my non-paying time trying new recipes, say, then there's none left for reading. And there's certainly not any time left over to expand into the things I've always been interested in, but neglected to study when I had the chance. Like chemistry or acoustics. And when am I going to find time to design the "smart" solar oven I've been mulling over during my morning runs?
How did earlier people solve this? In Victorian times, gentlefolk just hired droves of servants to do the menial labor, so they could work out the details of the orbit of planets and Calvinism.
But even if I had enough money to have servants, I'd start to envy them the chance to hang out clothes in the morning air.
See what I mean?

Yesterday, in fact, I was feeling a little down, a little sad that I have done very little music composing lately. Despite the fact I have a degree in it.
So I got out my old manuscript paper notebook (itself an anachronism, now that I have Finale notation on the computer). I looked back at my sketches for a suite for late intermediate piano I started a couple of years ago. One of the pieces is done, and I'd written some ideas for following pieces. There, beneath the first piece was one tentatively called, "The Hen Takes Flight." Apparently it would contain something I called the "dammit motif."
I cannot recall now, what exactly the "dammit motif" was. It must have been something that was running through my head so much that I didn't see a need to write it out.
All I know is, this is too irresistible. Anything called The Hen Takes Flight with a "dammit motif" must be finished.
I will get back on it for sure.
Just as soon as tonight's piano lessons are over.