I agree, and will that said hobby is likely to be more effective if it partly, but not entirely, engages the same analytic & creative knowledge work skills that

I agree, and will that said hobby is likely to be more effective if it partly, but not entirely, engages the same analytic & creative knowledge work skills that you've already honed by getting into tech in the first place. for me, it's writing the dragon-as-protagonist fantasy novel I wish someone had already written. There's a creative side (the world is whatever I say, mwahaha) but if you introduce the discipline to say 'my story should be publishable if i decide to go that route' then the analytic side comes up because there are relatively defined criteria a given story needs to contain in order to be publishable (total length, sequencing of action / reaction units, building scenes & sequels, viewpoint rules, description curtailments, etc.) So - what is something that is not coding, but has a creative & analytic side to it that you could do as a side hobby? Woodworking is definitely that, writing a book is that, some people even seem to do side-gigs as their hobby, I'm sure it's even possible to make a video game hobby or a tabletop RPG hobby into those two pieces as well. Just don't make your hobby 'I stare at the TV' level. 'I stare at the TV then blog about it' would even work.