Speaking on German radio in 1969, philosopher Theodor W. Adorno expressed his surprise at how often we get asked about our hobbies. Whenever he got this question himself, it shocked him, he explained, only to declare in typically contrarian fashion, “I have no hobbies.” He saw the hobby as a form of bourgeois ideology. Where capitalism makes labor a commodity, likewise in the form of the hobby, leisure is made into a thing, as “organized freedom.”

Adorno was already rather old-fashioned for his time — and since he delivered that radio lecture, asking people about their hobbies has become almost banal. From the informal sphere — small talk with strangers, dating apps — to more formal settings — a job interview, an application form — the question of hobbies pops up everywhere. The question is innocuous enough — though sometimes it has a clear normative element. Those without hobbies are socially maladjusted — workaholics or else lazy idlers.

Although the notion of having hobbies has become ordinary, it’s still a subject of discussion. Many millennials realize that they simply don’t have any hobbies, and, as an article in the Financial Times recently signaled, certain hobbies, such as collecting stamps or old postcards, have long been in decline. Trivial as such observations might seem, they point to the deeper question of the contemporary relation between work and leisure — and our ability to reclaim our free time.