Useful vs. Useless interests and hobbies

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Art can be therapeutic. Certain forms and colours and sounds have positive effects on the mind and body. Doing it can be even better. I would say that creating well being was incredibly useful, especially in such times as we live in.

Seems I've spent my life learning careers that turned out to be useless. I started out as a newspaper photographer, but that didn't work out, and has gone the way of steam.

I learned Commercial photography only to find it to be a highly competitive field in a state of change with lots of people chasing fewer jobs.

Then I learned web design only ti find out that web programming is where the jobs are and design is like any other art field where only a hand full of people with people skills find the few jobs available that pay decently.

And getting good at any software is hard cause it's a moving target. For someone who likes to leisurely practice and discover the nuances it is hard when they keep changing it.

I could spend 50 years learning all there is to know about Photoshop CS3, and learn to do things the designers never anticipated, but they already have come out with the next version. How could a virtuoso ever master a violin if the designers changed it every two years?

First, I do not "choose" my interests, they choose me.

Secondly, if it's interesting and I have fun, it has a "point," regardless of whether or not it makes me "money."

I like my interests to be practical. It's probably why I don't play a musical instrument because then I'd have to join a band and even at a young age I knew that I was bad at making friends.
I have turned my interests into practical things such as photographing bands, writing science fiction, drawing things from my favourite TV show etc.

My no.1 intense interest at the moment is Stargate and I'm not really getting anything from it in the same way as the others. Actually, it costs me more money because I like to collect the merchandise. I could possibly write my own fan fiction because I did that with Doctor Who with much success but I really want to write my own story. It does help me come up with things to draw and influences some ideas about writing my own science fiction though.

My others interests are physics and history and they do at least teach me new things. And with a memory like mine (poor) I've always got something 'new' to learn. The books I read also get my ideas flowing about things to write.

Something that isn't really an interest but is just me writing down my thoughts has made me write articles for an Autism site which may bring me closer to finding a good job.

At least if my going to see bands live interest is an interest it's the only thing that helps me deal with the outside world and may even improve social skills. Or at least I can remember how much a Heineken costs in Sydney pubs. $7.50.

that was my point- if you get to keep a paying job, that is making you money to survive with and so it is useful.

All my hobbies are things that can give me money one way or the other.

Programming, electronics, reading, writing.

I have been thinking about collecting toy trains and everything that comes with them. All kinds of locomotives, railroad cars, but you can already predict what I am going to say: toy trains won't give me money in any shape or form. They are just a waste of money, so that's a hobby I won't be having any time soon, if ever. Same thing applies to the idea of buying an electric guitar. I will waste too much time with that hobby, and since I have ADHD, I tend to waste a lot of time already.