the death of doing things just because

When did it become unacceptable to simply be... mediocre at something?

Among India’s Gen Z, there seems to be a growing non-acceptance of not being good at things. Somewhere between the culture of self-optimization, productivity trackers, spreadsheets, and the cult of monetisation, we’ve lost something essential: the ability to have hobbies for the sheer, stupid joy of them. Just for the sake of it.

Today, hobbies have two fates: they either die quietly or get absorbed into the productivity-industrial complex. You’re either expected to become good at them or—worse—there’s pressure that if you are good at something, you must monetise it. If you're great at art, sell prints. If you’re a decent dancer, start making reels. If you bake, turn it into a side hustle. The very idea of doing something without any tangible return—financial or self-optimizing—now feels almost blasphemous.

This shift is not just cultural—it’s linguistic.

Take the Italian word dilettante, from the same root as delectable—to savour, to relish, to enjoy. It once referred to someone who delighted in the arts. Today, it suggests a person who hops from interest to interest, has a shallow engagement with arts and culture, and isn't really in deep understanding of anything. Or consider how we are embarrassed to say “Oh, I’m just an amateur”, the word derived from the French root amour, meaning "lover of," someone who does something for the love of it. Now, it's shorthand for "not good enough” or someone who is slightly capable of something.

This absurd, by some pervasive twist of logic we’ve linguistically degraded love into incompetence or shallow engagement. We live in a time where it feels almost shameful to not be good at something. Worse, to be good and not exploit it. The idea of doing something for no reason other than joy or curiosity seems almost subversive.

Even spaces that once embraced imperfection and experimentation—like zines or community theatre—have started echoing with the pressure to perform, to package, to go viral. The amateur is out. The brand is in.

There’s something sad—no, jarring—about this shift. It reveals a deeper cultural discomfort: we no longer engage in activities that don’t center us. Just look at the hobbies trending today—running clubs, pickleball, bouldering. They’re fun, sure, but they still put you at the center, extensions of the body-optimization narrative. Compare that to, say, standing in front of a painting, or listening to a raga. These are experiences that demand you not be the center. You’re not optimizing yourself. There’s no leaderboard. No personal best. No quantifiable output.

This erosion of the unproductive has larger consequences. The decline of hobbies signals a loss of something intangible; our ability to engage with beauty and boredom on their own terms. In French, there's a word—appauvrissement—which means a kind of impoverishment, not of money, but of richness. And that's what we're seeing: a cultural thinning, a flattening of our inner worlds.

India once had a rich tradition of casual collectors, birdwatchers, ham radio enthusiasts, stamp archivists, chalk artists. These were un-monetizable joys. You can’t scale a stamp collection. You can’t leverage your ability to tell an Indian bulbul from an Indian pitta. These pursuits weren’t useless—they cultivated patience, attention, what the ancients called rasa-bodha, the aesthetic sensibility.

But post-liberalisation, the pressure to "make it"—into a top college, a high-paying job—has squeezed out the room for leisure without utility, and joy without transaction. Where once a child who collected bottle caps after school was indulged, today he or she is nudged toward robotics bootcamps, coding classes, or worse, pushed to become exceptional at some activity that can be stacked on college applications and CVs. It’s not their fault—it’s the logic of the age: scale or be sidelined. This is the industrialisation of childhood. Time not monetised is wasted, and effort without an audience is vanity.

The idea of the hobby itself has been quietly co-opted by platforms. Watching movies is no longer enough—you need to review them on Letterboxd and collect likes. Reading becomes a Goodreads competition. Our digital culture demands metrics: followers, shares, views.

And I’m not exempt from any of this. I’m part of the same culture I’m critiquing. As I write this and prepare to publish it online, I’m aware of the irony. I love reading books—but I love curating my Goodreads lists too (I’ve been doing it religiously for the past five years). I watch films—but I also rate them on Letterboxd. I make art—and I share it here with you guys.

I’m guilty too. But my aim here isn’t judgment—it’s observation

This isn’t about disowning the platforms or pretending we don’t enjoy them. It’s about questioning what we lose when every experience becomes an opportunity for performance.

What we need isn’t another productivity hack, but a quiet cultural rebellion: one that re-legitimises leisure, dignifies the amateur, and whispers to us that it’s okay—no, vital—to do things just because we want to.

Even if we suck at them. Especially if we suck at them.

I am trying to allow myself to be bad at things. It's perfect that I hopelessly suck at photography, I will continue to take pictures. To write without worrying if it’s shareable. This year, I want to be an amateur at more things—and be unapologetic about it.