Hey folks,
I have been trying to find some new hobbies to keep my anxiety/depression at bay. It seems, however, that my mind is not creative enough to find interesting things to do. So, I come to you to ask: What are your hobbies? Why do you like them?
Here are the things I’ve tried:
- Going to the gym (This is more of a habit than a hobby nowadays)
- Gaming (I’ve been getting less and less out of it as I get older)
- Bouldering (It’s fun, but not without a group of friends)
- TTRPG (I can’t seem to find a steady group or one online, but otherwise, it’s very enjoyable)
- Learning a new instrument (I started playing the guitar and I love it)
- Philosophy (Is that a hobby? I enjoy reading and reflecting on it)
So, folks, what are your favorite pastimes?
Thanks :)
I have a few; the main one right now are mechanical wristwatches - learning about them, acquiring them, wearing them, taking them apart, trying to put them together again, modifying them, all of it.
That’s such an underrated skill! Constantly seeing people on Nextdoor asking for help fixing their old watches. If you have a repair cafe then it’s worth volunteering, you’d have a lot of practice!
That sounds really cool. I think I’d never be able to do it with my clumsy hands. How did you get into it?
The draw is the mechanical intricacy of it. I was fortunate to be given a Speedmaster at a crucial time in my late teens; if it had been a car I would likely just as easily have become a petrolhead.
There are a number of enthusiast communities out there - some superficially might seem to be brand specific or oriented around buying / selling but most have quite a lot of technical know how on them.
The stuff I play with is cheap (broken or damaged items bought second hand) and the tools are second hand too.
I’ve taken up cycling recently, it’s a great time to think about absolutely nothing and clear my head, while also getting fresh air and exercise.
Solo boardgaming: tons of cooperative games can be played solo. At the moment, my main games are Marvel Champions and Arkham Horror LCG.
Cross-stitching: maybe the easiest kind of embroidery, perfect for pixel art patterns and you don’t need expensive stuff to get in.
I’ve been trying to find solo board games for ages but they’re hard to come across. One day I’ll have the courage to go to the board game cafe but not yet
Okay…
Well, Programming - Except I am doing it… slowly. A lot of the days I just… feel stuck. Depressed. Buuut, I keep trying. I mainly use Common Lisp, and I try to make small games, or… things that will help me do something (e.g scrape some text and put together a epub?)
Reading books - This one, I can do a lot. Simply, a pleasure. I tend to do this with an approach of spray n pray, aka: Read few minutes of a book -> Move to next for few minutes, and I keep doing that few times a day, or more, and more often than not, It sticks, and I get actual big times out of that. (The result is, I am reading 5 books at once lmao)
Learning Japanese - This one, I am combining with my previous hobby, and I am simply aiming to read at the very least ~1 hour per day of reading in Japanese. Is fun.
There was also pixelart at some point, but I haven’t been doing that in a while. Maybe I should try again? Could be fun, again… perhaps…
Obviously, also, games. You know, some TF2 there and there, Hunt:Showdown, with friends.
Still thinking, if there are any other things I could try, and… wide out hobbies.
Sourdough. I make 1 loaf a week,.but I eat a loaf every 3. That gives me 2/3 loaves to give away. People really like you when you give them bread. The socialization is really a side effect. I enjoy baking bc I like
murdering billions of yeast in a fiery deathcresting things with my hands.FRESH sourdough is SO good! The next day… enh.
- playing with Lego bricks
- reading graphic novels
- listening to fictional podcasts (audio dramas)
- kick boxing :)
I love Lego, been getting into it more as an adult than I ever did when I was little (was too expensive). I love the botanical collection, have a nice bouquet at the moment
What kind of you do?
Oh, my Lego interests are extremely varied :). I have a lot from when I was young, now I mostly do nice architecture sets or Lego icons. But I recently bought 31120, an ages 9+ 3in1 castle I I’m having a lot of fun with it too. I can really recommend creator sets, even though they are aimed at children the bricks and designs are very cool and charming and allow for a lot creativity afterwards!
Reading, knitting, crochet. Also journaling! I like gaming sometimes too.
Programming. I love making small command line programs in python or automating something. Someday I want to make a music desktop app that syncs songs to my phone.
Hot swappable mechanical keyboards. It can be pricey but there’s hot swappable keyboards on amazon for cheap, and you can get your own keycaps and switches to create a keyboard that you are really happy with. I love being able to tinker around with my keyboards and swap things out if I don’t like them.
Making a “second brain” or personal wiki. I love taking lots of notes (recipes I like, about what I learned, how to fix a software problem, etc) so I can find things easier in the future. I use Obsidian for this, it’s really fun.
Lock picking. I got into this for a bit, bought some lock picks and bad padlocks. I watched a lot of LockPickingLawyer’s videos and thought it looked fun so I tried it. I was bad at it, it’s a lot of feeling when the pins move and stop. It takes a lot of patience but it’s really fun.
Making edits to Open Street Map. If you see something wrong, you can go edit it if you make an account and use a map editor.
Raspberry Pi self hosting. I think they are hard to find right now, but it’s cool to have a small computer running Raspberry Pi OS (linux) where you can install pretty much anything on it. I run Pi-Hole on mine and it blocks so many ad and tracker domains it’s insane.
Making a game. I’m slowly trying to learn blender and unreal engine to make a game. I think it will be fun but also a nightmare.
I’ve gotten into writing with fountain pens lately. It’s been pretty fun!
- TTRPGS, especially pathfinder 2e: A fun way to stay in touch with distant friends
- Gaming, though I find it less interesting as time goes on
- Programming: I can always find something I meed automated, and I just simply like writing in Rust
- Homelabbing: i got some cheap servers on ebay and I like tinkering with them. The more enterprise-y and difficult to set up, the more rewarding it, even if I nuke that setup in a few days. Also, my home network is really capable now.
- Cybersecurity: hacking labs, CTFs, reading papers, and malware analysis are just simply fun and interesting to me, and it has the bonus of being practical experience
- Coffee and Espresso: Good coffee and a peaceful activity is fucking wonderful. Highly recommend if you already drink coffee. I started off with an aeropress for $30. Then I got a decent espresso-capable hand grinder for around $60. I got started with espresso for around $100, and that was easily one of my best purchases in the last year.
Sim racing. There’s an initial expense to buy the wheel and pedals, but it’s a really fun hobby and if you find the right people a great community. I recommend starting with a Assetto Corsa which is an older game with an amazing mods. Avoid the temptation to get into iRacing until you’re sure you like the hobby.
I had a co-worker who was super into sim racing. He had this insane setup in his living room with a chair, pedals and so on. What wheels and pedals do you recommend to get started? 🤔
Most people start out with a Logitech wheel and pedal set. The G923 is a great option for buying new, but you can also find the G29 or G27 for cheap used.
Once you have the wheel and pedals, there’s tons of games you can use them with. I also love American Truck Simulator and Dirt Rally 2. There’s lots of people streaming those games as well as Assetto Corsa so you can see on Twitch or YouTube what they’re about. Also, if you go on Steam and type in sim racing you’ll find tons more games, but these three titles are more than enough to get you started. I have hundreds of hours just in these three games.
Needlepoint. Even if you’re following a pattern, it’s creative, takes time, and is quite meditative once you get going. Materials are cheap and accessible. Just need good lighting, a comfortable seat with space to move around. Be aware that you’re holding sharp object and there will be loose threads, so no small children or animals nearby.
I cross stitch. I haven’t done it in a long while, though. I ought to get going on my sampler again.
I have a wife and a three year old, so I don’t have a tremendous amount of free time these days. Still, I fill what I can with PC gaming (wife and I are playing Valheim together currently), reading fiction, and occasionally writing. Occasionally.
I’m in a similar boat with family obligations – our almost-two-year-old has no respect for bedtime! 😅 – but I make time once a week to play a rotating collection of co-op survival games with college friends, and occasionally find time to work on making mods for racing sims. I used to autocross and would love to go club racing again at some point, but there’s just no time or budget for it at the moment.
I figure eventually here these kids are going to be old enough to get in on these co-op survival games. I hooked up my old Wii recently and my daughter loves to play Mario Kart, even it she only drives in circles and shouts, “Find me, Dad!”. We just have to get through the sleep deprivation and maybe another thousand bedtimes or so, and then hey… It’ll probably get easier… 🫠
When kiddo’s down in the home office with me his favorite thing is to play with my simrig. He’ll point to the wheel and ask “Dwive? Dwive?” and then when I set him up he’ll happily saw away at the wheel for a half an hour at the time – usually right into a wall, but I can’t expect perfect apexes from a 20-month-old, can I? 😅
Cooking is one of my favourite hobbies. I can get lost in creating a new dish and playing around with all the ingredients. I sometimes feel like a painter when creating food. It’s super relaxing for me.
skateboarding, smoking weed, weed edibles, ketamollycaine, nitrous oxide, eating food, watching tv, video games, dubstep, hot tub, snowboarding, disc golf, music festivals
Too bad weed is not legal here. I reckon that’d help with the anxiety.
Is CBD available where you are? Some people find that helpful (I have some CBD gummies that help my back pain)
Unfortunately, it is not. At some point CBD oils were allowed, but they had no THC in them, so it was not super helpful. :(
