WHAT is your favourite hobby, the thing that you do in your spare time, and from which you derive immense pleasure?

Decades ago, when I was an English teacher in a secondary school in Kuching, I thrust this harmless question onto      the classroom floor. A     hand shot up from the back of the class, and a boy answered, “My favourite thing to do in my leisure is to sleep.”

I have failed to follow the progress of this particular student in the journey of his life. Generally speaking, any young person who finds the first opportunity to seek escape from life’s many trials and tribulation in slumber-land is not expected to excel at anything.

By general consent, a hobby may be very much a matter of personal choice, but somehow, it is supposed to be good for you. Otherwise, it is considered to be a waste of time.

Nowadays, in this age of information technology, all young people are obsessed with the computer. The adults may wax lyrical about the advantage of the Internet, as a source of information, and a great tool for informal education. For the young though, the beauty of this digital world resides in the limitless opportunity for entertainment offered by computer games.

At the mere click of the mouse, you have available at your finger tips numerous gambits where you battle opponents of all sorts, space monsters, samurai warriors, strange creatures from a nether world, and evil characters from cyberspace. One has to admire the ingenuity of the engineer who creates such mesmerising software; such games are far more addictive than heroin or opium.

The computer is very much at the centre of a young person’s life nowadays, if you have Internet connection at home. At least you are lucky if your child is obsessed with computer games only.  He could be equally obsessed with pornography.

The times have changed. In our impoverished materially-deprived youth, long before the PC was born, our favourite hobby was fishing.

All you needed then was a long bamboo pole, a sturdy thread, a hook that you could easily purchase at the Corner Shop at Khoo Hun Yeang Street, and a few earthworms that you could unearth in your backyard.

We would proceed proudly to the nearest river, or the seafront at Sibuti, and cast the line. Sometimes, one has to wait for hours, literally. That is the beauty of fishing. It is a test of your patience. You wait for your fish. When finally you feel it nibbling nervously at your bait, jerking at your hand holding gingerly at the fishing pole, you would be overcome with a sense of awe at the wonder of life. Then you must learn the lesson of humanity. You release the fish after you have caught it. It is an honourable act that no computer geek will dream of emulating.

During those long gone days, without the computer and the television, we played all kinds of games everyday. Boarding at St. Joseph’s Secondary School at Rock Road in Kuching, I had many enjoyable evenings     of football, badminton,  table tennis, rugby, and athletics.

When the hormones kicked in, there was much dreaming about love. Many of my schoolmates fell in love with English pop songs, and love was the single theme in the lyrics of Elvis Presley, Jim Reeves, Cliff Richard, Connie Francis, and The Beatles. Few could afford the gramophone and the records that came mainly in two sizes, the large 78s and the small 45s. Nowadays, you can find these antiques in museums only.

Every Saturday afternoon at two, the Sarawak RTM English Service would broadcast a request programme. Many young boys and girls emerging from their first burst of puberty would be glued to their radio set dutifully at that time, waiting to hear their names called out by the announcer (usually a certain Ms Annie Lim) and a message of dedication to a friend or an imaginary sweetheart.

Naturally, our tastes and preferences change over the years. As we reach adulthood, we may venture into more expensive hobbies.

Keeping pets is both absorbing and rewarding. I now have two female cats to keep me company in my hermitage. Taking care of them can be time-consuming and it is a substantial drain on the purse.

They arrived in the deep darkness one night uninvited at the back door, and I could fit the two of them in one hand. One was completely white with a long tail, and I named her Snow White. The other had the colours of a Persian rug and I named her Venus. My two princesses now have grown to weigh over five kg and they terrorise the birds, cockroaches, and lizards in the neighbourhood. Naturally, I love them to distraction. At night, I take them to sleep with me even.

Pets are therapeutic, especially if you are prone to lonely depression. The commonest house pets also include the faithful dog, man’s best friend. But I  have met people who keep the weirdest of pets. A friend is absolutely devoted to his giant lizard, and another has a snake for companionship. Talk about people keeping strange company!

There are people who spend all their free time and money collecting things. Stamp collecting seems to be out of fashion nowadays. Others go for cars, the latest and the most expensive sound and theatre system, and still others collect girlfriends.

I had a friend who was the editor of a newspaper. He was fond of buying and collecting books. When he died from cancer a few years ago, his widow donated over 10,000 books to the library of a local college. That is what I call leaving a lasting legacy.

In fact, the hobbies available to us are legion. I always envy people who are adept at gardening. The fruit of their labour of love is a beautiful cosy garden with many flowers in full bloom. What greater pleasure in life can there be for our eternal gardener as he sits, sipping his tea at sunset, surrounded by the fragrance and colours of his beloved plants. For myself, I love gardening, but suffer from the great disadvantage of not being able to squat.

Indeed, life would be intolerable without a few hobbies to while away our leisure hours. Those workaholics who have no time to cultivate an absorbing hobby or two would find living a life quite pointless the minute they reach retirement age. Then, they have all the time in the world and nothing to do but waiting to die.

Unfortunately, some hobbies are really not good for you. Gambling comes immediately to mind. First you buy a four-digit number here, and then a Toto ticket there. Then you buy them several times a week. You live and breathe numbers everyday. It is a matter of time that you graduate to betting on football games, and there are a lot of those every week on TV for you to indulge in your habit. Finally, you make first the occasional, and then the frequent, trips to Genting Highlands.

Very soon, a harmless pastime degenerates into a compulsive obsession. Your business or career becomes neglected. Your marriage breaks down towards an inevitable end. Debts pile up. More than a few gambling addicts will       start borrowing from the loan sharks. More than a   few people I know have committed suicide       because they could not     bear the burden of snowballing gambling     debt.

If this ageing hermit is qualified to give advice to younger generations of Sarawakians, then it is this: turn off the TV, get away from the majong table, get off your butt, and do something interesting that absorbs your attention, and rewards you for your investment of time, money, and dedication. Better      still, share the hobby with your loved ones, and enjoy the moments of family bonding. You will never be sorry.

As this essay shall appear on Gawai Dayak Day, I wish all my readers: happy holidays. Gayu Guru, Gerai Nyamai!