A New Productive Hobby

If you read the Apple blog, then you may have read that I just yes­ter­day dusted off my iPod after months of inac­tiv­ity. A strange thing is that I didn’t at all feel like lis­ten­ing to music while only a few month ago, I did it every day.

I’ve asked myself why music doesn’t appeal to me any­more except for when I’m at home with my speak­ers. My thoughts are that, for good or bad, it affects you emo­tion­ally and has an impact on your mood but it’s just not very pro­duc­tive.

So I got this bril­liant idea that I would try some­thing dif­fer­ent — pod­cast­ing. You can call me out-dated but I’ve actu­ally never lis­tened to one. Google brought me to Pod­cast Alley which brought me to my first pod­cast adven­ture — The Web 2.0 Show.

I like it. In fact, I like it very much. It’s stim­u­lat­ing in an entirely dif­fer­ent way than music. It may be com­pared to read­ing a book but pos­si­bly more casual and easy going. Of course, it doesn’t replace music and nei­ther is it meant to. It’s just relax­ing and stim­u­lat­ing in another way.

By lis­ten­ing to funny peo­ple — or as in my case, smart peo­ple — I think you tune your mind to a cer­tain fre­quenzy. In a way, you level with them. That on it’s own is stim­u­lat­ing. Some say you become more and more like the peo­ple you sur­round your­self with and the same prob­a­bly goes for the ones you lis­ten to.

What I find is best about pod­casts though, is the way that they pro­voke thought. The whole con­cept is just very pro­duc­tive by nature. And for me as a young devel­oper, lis­ten­ing to these peo­ple is also incred­i­bly inspiring.

Sound like a new hobby. :)