Non-academic skills, both motor and cognitive, can enrich research capabilities in unexpected and often unexamined ways, writes Stephen W. Harmon. Surely, everything we do, and many things we don’t, shape us as people. Yet we seldom stop to reflect on what is shaping us and how. Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living. That seems a bit harsh, but I do think it’s a good aspiration. I’m happy to take the opportunity to examine one facet of my life – my scholarship – through the lens of my hobbies. Or perhaps what I’m doing is the opposite of that: examining my hobbies through the lens of scholarship.