One of the few times I have been out recently, found me sitting in a hide with one other interested party doing exactly what we were both there for, observing birds. The tides were wrong which made the already waste of time even worse, however the boredom gave way to pleasant reminiscences concerning past sightings and general bird observations, however, exhausting this topic after about twenty minutes, the conversation edged to include our working professions, me, when I did, and him when wouldn't, he explained that five years before he was made redundant, he was middle-aged and prospects at his age and in his profession were not good, after a few months had transpired he lost his house and was left to look after a wife and two children on meagre savings in rented accommodation, life became mundane and boring so he took up birding to alleviate this.
He persued this hobby to such an extent it became an obsession, out at dawn and home at dusk, the family lived on benefits and he did remark that he had become used to this way of life, however, his wife did not agree to being benevolent and having to scrimp and scrape so the marriage ended but his obsessive birding hobby, if you can call it that in his case, carries on.
I listened intently to his rhetoric and at a convenient moment asked him if he ever intended to seek a job, his reply was "not on your life" a job would greatly restrict my movements and the time I could spend with my hobby, I said what about money and self esteem he replied the money I get by on, my rent is paid, I have zero council tax I get help with fuel and as I do not smoke or drink I live quite comfortably, and as for the self esteem that went when I lost my job.
I summed up later having thought hard, I found it difficult to condemn this attitude, all he has done is to join what does seem to be a large section of our population who have no intention of going to work, and in many cases they are the offspring of fathers that have hardly worked all their lives. I would add I was never out of work all of my working life and have been told by some of my village teenagers when telling them of this fact the reply was "more fool you"
