What's the use of a hobby? What happens when a hobby dies

What's the use of a hobby?

Is it just to give myself confidence when I look back at how much I have improved myself over time? The slow and consistent improvement gives me joy when I look back, even if there's no one else in the world to validate it.

Hobbies make my life feel more meaningful and valuable, and then that internalizes and manifests outwardly as pride, joy, and confidence (e.g. being able to look someone in the eye and smile), EVEN if I never tell anyone else about my accomplishments in that hobby. That's probably what hobbies are useful for.

I wonder if a animals have hobbies. Maybe they don't because they're too busy getting better at fighting/hunting/surviving/attracting a mate.

Maybe that's what hobbies are really for too - attracting a mate. Because as explained above, it'll make us happy and confident about what we can accomplish in our lives, and we are all attracted to confidence.

So.... hobby on.

Death of a hobby:

I want to be able to do cutbacks and get into barrels for surfing, but I'm not sure what's the whole point of it is after I stop the hobby. I know i'm going to move away from the beach soon. And I've noticed for myself that I need to surf about twice a week in order to maintain my shoulder muscles, or else I can't paddle for shit. So then that just means I will sooner or later give up this hobby. 

When I partake in it now, it's just for the current fun and joy I get out of it, which is totally fine. I guess the future joy in it comes from being able to look back and say "yeah i did that." Just like "yeah, I've been to Europe", or "yeah I have 5 years of engineering experience, I did that", and that gives us a sense of joy/confidence. 

hrm.. I'd need to think more about "death of a hobby" and how that'll impact me. Professional athletes sometimes retire early even when they're still young and healthy because they feel accomplished enough. Or rich people retire early because they've earned enough.

So retiring or stopping early in a pursuit doesn't mean that pursuit was a worthless ambition - because they've already met their goal and when they look back, they feel happy about it. I guess same thing goes for my hobbies that I eventually quit.