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Hobbies for intellectual people - can you add to the list?

Quagmire

Imaginary talking monkey
Staff member
Premium Member
Sitting in a coffee shop, smoking a pipe, pretending to read a book by Noam Chomsky with one cynical eyebrow raised and an amused smirk on your face.

(even if you aren't an intellectual, this will make you look like one).
 

BSM1

What? Me worry?
Here's an easy hobby for intellectual types: not taking yourself so seriously. Well, on second thought, maybe not so easy.
 

Penumbra

Veteran Member
Premium Member
So what hobbies would be good for people who like to exercise their intellect? Add to the list?

  • Chess
  • Religion - Theology - Philosophy
  • Models - boats, cars, planes etc.
  • Role play games e.g. Dungeons and Dragons
  • Electronics
  • Programming languages e.g. Java.

Any more?
To people that like to exercise the intellect, I'd probably recommend physical hobbies. Running, weightlifting, sports, martial arts, hiking, mountain climbing, cycling, swimming, etc.

The reason being, if they have intellectual interests they probably are good at finding intellectual hobbies. To be well-rounded and healthy it would make sense to also be physically active and engaged.
 

dust1n

Zindīq
I would disagree with the majority of those.

Perhaps Chess, Theology, Philosophy and Learning Languages. But the rest of them do not seem fitting.

How about Reading? Or Learning an Instrument?

I'm not sure how learning electronics or programming languages, or making models or playing extremely involved role-playing games don't qualify as hobbies in which exercise the mind...
 
So what hobbies would be good for people who like to exercise their intellect? Add to the list?

  • Chess
  • Religion - Theology - Philosophy
  • Models - boats, cars, planes etc.
  • Role play games e.g. Dungeons and Dragons
  • Electronics
  • Programming languages e.g. Java.

Any more?

In olden times, a basic understanding of arts was considered to be an important part of being educated or cultured. Most aristocrats took pride in learning about music and painting. Of course they weren't all Rembrandt or Vivaldi, but they at least knew the basics. Also a good knowledge of literature was considered a mark of good breeding, as were classical languages like Latin or Greek.

As far as one trying to become more intelligent through these hobbies, there are a lot of things that exercise the mind either directly or indirectly but it is how they are done. For instance looking at a photograph of a landscape, then trying to reproduce that photo by painting or drawing can train spatial memory and attention to details. Or painting a realistic image from your mind can help train your creativity and thought process. On the other hand, Chess can be good mind-training, but if you're just moving pieces around without really thinking you might as well be doing something else.
 
Last edited:

Onkara

Well-Known Member
I saw an advert for a bottle of whisky. At the bottom it said "Drink intelligently", so I am going to add "Whisky drinking" to the list.

Thanks all for the replies so far!

I have also considered meteorology - learning how the weather works, might be good and would get me out of the house.
 
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