My wife looked at me with bright amber eyes the other day and laughed in my face. “Is no hobby off limits for you?” she mused.

We were cleaning our attic and going through an old box of mine. It was a veritable time capsule of previous hobbies I once held dear. The one that made Lindsey laugh most were my magic tricks.

“How much did you spend on these?” she asked. “A few hundred,” I responded. “Let me guess, you only played with them for a few weeks,” she countered.

Probably.

You see, I lose interest in hobbies as quickly as I discover them. I do have lifelong passions—music and sports chief among them. But most of my hobbies are fleeting. I get what I need and then move on to new hobbies. The old ones remain as slice of my former self; a talking point with anyone who has shared my enthusiasm for x, y, or z.

But it’s not out of boredom that I lose interest in hobbies. It’s out of a desire to experience as many things as I can. Someday I’ll list a comprehensive set of passions that I chased in this life. But for now, here are personal hobbies I’m particularly keen on at the moment:

1. Chess. Thanks to this brilliant app, I’ve got seven games going at the moment. I’m also teaching my kids how to play. Admittedly, I’m a below average player. But I give better players fits and make ’em doubt their confidence once in a while. I also love the feeling of losing a queen or getting down early, only to recapture later before mating an opponent in the final hour. It’s invigorating. And the game is teaching me more life lessons than Mr. Miyagi’s manual labor did for Daniel Son.
2. Cooking. Both a passion and essential, I spend more time thinking about what I’m going to eat than just about anything else in my life. I don’t just like food, I love it. All Recipes is one of my favorite websites and most used apps. Cooking clears my head better than just about anything.
3. Snowshoeing (new for 2013). I’ve always liked hiking. This is all that’s good about hiking, only whiter, quieter, and more reverent. Really excited to explore this one more next winter.
4. Disc jockeying. Recording music takes a lot of time. Which is why I haven’t added to my canon of music in a while. DJing, on the other hand, lets me interact, manipulate, remix, produce and “create” music more easily than from scratch. I’m just a bedroom DJ. And I listen to music more. But when I want to play around, I reach for this and the DJ app on either my desktop or iPhone for a one man party. Or if my kids are in the room, a family discotheque. Few things in life are better at keeping you young at heart than music and dancing.
5. Working on my body. This hobby is mostly mundane now. Maintenance if you will. But I still get a runner’s high once in awhile. I still high five strangers, which is an awesome reminder that we’re all in this together. And I like lifting exercise ideas from Lindsey’s fitness DVDs to keep my muscles confused, as they say. The added bonus of this hobby: It’s where I study new music and enjoy favorite albums.

Readers: What hobbies are you keen on at the moment? I’m always looking for new ideas and experiences to share.