The Man With A Hobby
I was out for a run when I saw him.
A grown man crouched over a remote-control car, the kind that races across asphalt with the seriousness of a machine that has no idea it is a toy.
I slowed down. I asked one harmless question. What do you have there?
He told me everything: the brand, the motor,
the suspension, the batteries, the upgrades.
Why he picked this model and not another and the whole history of his hobby.
I do not think he had spoken this freely in a long time. Maybe no one had asked...
I was trapped by kindness.
The way a man becomes an audience without meaning to.
There is something touching about it.
A man who is not dangerous, not grandiose, not trying to impress. Just someone full of something he loves, and he does not know where to put it. He stores it inside like pressure. And me, by accident, released the valve.
There are men who talk too much.
There are men who say nothing.
And then there are men with a hobby.
Ask the men with a hobby one question and you will hear everything they have been holding back from a world that no longer listens to long explanations.
The funny thing is that I did not mind.
He was nice. He was human. His enthusiasm was clean. It was interesting. But it took half an hour to escape, and it was half an hour of seeing a man not pretending.
When I finally left, I thought: everyone carries an unlived conversation.
Something they know well.
Something they love.
Something no one ever asks about.
In modern life, nobody has time for these things. People scroll, skim, move on. They want conclusions, not stories. Headlines, not passions. A man with a niche interest becomes invisible. They say no man is an island, but often a man’s world becomes a private island no one visits.
So when someone finally asks a real question, even a small one, he pours out the entire landscape of his island.
It is not about the RC car.
It is about being heard once, without irony or interruption.
Anthropologists would call it accumulated cultural energy. (Maybe I invented the term.)
Psychologists might call it a bid for connection.
A philosopher who drinks too much herbal tea would say every man secretly remains a boy.
But I think it is simpler.
People carry things inside them.
Some heavy.
Some joyful.
Ask at the right moment, and the whole thing comes out in one long breath.
And sometimes, on an ordinary day, during an ordinary run, you become the witness a stranger needed to feel alive.
Next time I see someone standing there, I will ask again. You never know what world you step into.