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 :)
- Reading
- Gaming
- VR Gamedev and weird videos about it (link to gfycat of me, uh, helicoptering a vive controller years ago)
- Weird “video lectures” where I apply hard mathematics/computer science to fandoms/shipping/LGBT things.
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Walking my dog - Better awareness of my neighborhood/getting to know my neighbors. Fresh air, sunshine, and time to work through my thoughts helps me stay clear headed. Cardio is good for you.
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Fencing - both physically and mentally challenging. It is basically violently enforced meditation. Hella fun and is great stress relief. Cons - can be expensive and relatively few adults.
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Reading fiction - I enjoy getting lost in other worlds. Helps to disconnect from the internet from time to time
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Yoga - reduces random aches and pains from sitting all day at work/high impact activities. It just generally feels good afterwards.
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Curling - team sport I do with my spouse. Throwing shit and drinking/eating afterwards is nice. Good community to socialize with.
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Watching movies/tv/YouTube - Lots of great stuff out there. Easy to do too much of this one, especially youtube.
Oooh… How… how expensive can be fencing? Because, kinda… sounds fun?
It can depend on where you’re located and how deep you get into the sport. For beginner classes, in my area, they are ~$100 for 6 weeks. It gets more expensive once you need your own gear and if you choose to compete and/or take private lessons.
I think the most comparable comparison in costs are probably club hockey and club soccer.
Oh That is actually… not that bad. I think, once I find a job again, I will definitely go for it. Thanks
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Honestly I have a lot. ADHD has me running in circles trying new things all the time lol.
Programming (until I turn it into a job). I’m just about to start on some small personal projects, and maybe some open source development. (Maybe contribute to lemmy?)
Voice Acting, though I haven’t done much in a couple years. Really need to get back on that, it was fun.
Gaming/TTRPG. My friend groups for this overlap and it’s a good time. I am (willingly) stuck in the forever DM position.
Watching TV Shows/Anime. Just anything that catches my interest, and I like to do some minor reviewing.
Reading. I’ll read pretty much any medium. Books, graphic novels, manga.
Learning Japanese. I’ve made some pretty good progress here, though I’ve fallen a bit behind in my flashcards.
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? 😅
I love pickleball. Social, active, easy on the body, and loads of 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.
Oof, I don’t know if I want to recommend anything I’m interested in as it cost lots of money to really enjoy these hobbies.
I guess at the base of it, my biggest hobby is generally upgrading every aspect of my day to day life.
Building PC’s
I’ve got 3 gaming PC’s in the house (wife’s, mine, and another for the tv with steam-big-picture) and also an Unraid server for media.
Desk Setups
I have 2 separate desk I put together. One for work and one for gaming. Both desk are wood countertops bolted onto sit-and-stand desk frames.
Work desk has a 34inch ultrawide. I also have a Herman Miller Logitech Embody which has helped my back immensely.
Gaming desk has a 38inch ultrawide which is awesome for gaming. And I have a Herman Miller non-logitech Embody. There are some subtle differences in how they feel and I need 2 chairs because I sit a little differently if I’m working or gaming.
Audio
I fell into the audio trap for my gaming and work desk partially thanks to r/headphones.
Headphones wise I have:
- Sennheiser 599SE - At my gaming desk
- AKG K713Pro - These were for my gaming desk, but I don’t like them as much as the others. My ears touch the driver which doesn’t feel good.
- Drop 6xx - At my work desk because I listen to the most music while working.
Amp/Dac/Mixer:
- JDS Atom Amp - work desk
- Schiit stack (Modi 3+ / Magni Heresy) - gaming desk; I just got these so I’m testing things out.
- Mackie 8 channel mixer - at gaming desk because I like using physical sliders to adjust gaming, music, discord instead of software.
- RE320 dynamic microphone
Everything above has been collected over the last 4-5 years or so.
Oh also OP if you made it this far down, check out twitch streams for a “board game” called Blood on the Clocktower. It’s a social deduction game you can play in person, but the community built a pretty comprehensive web-based tool to play online. My wife and I watch the streams every week it’s a lot of fun. She plays in some of the games too, I mostly just like to watch.
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. :(
- Astronomy (mostly visual, though I’ve done a bit of astrophotography)
- woodworking
- 3d printing (and modeling for it)
- programming (though I do it less for fun these days)
- gaming
Programming used to be my hobby. Unfortunately I went and turned that into a career, so I had to get some new hobbies. :)
Fishkeeping. I have 2 aquariums currently - a 20 gallon with freshwater tetras, and a 6 gallon shrimp tank. Moving to a new place soon, and bought a used 120 gallon tank (that I need to set up).
Videography. Ever since me and my wife had kids I’ve been using GoPros to film events and vacations, and then putting together video collages. Recently I got a real camera (Fuji X-T3) and kitted it out with accessories to make better home movies.
Homelabbing. It started out with a single external HDD enclosure with 2 disks for backups. Many years later it turned into a 12U rack with a network switch, firewall/VPN, 50TB storage server (for umm… Linux ISOs mostly) that runs various VMs and Docker containers, and some other machines like Plex server and game servers for my kids. I’m slowly learning about self-hosting things like photos and other media.
If you like TTRPG have you tried Warhammer? Where I live there are Warhammer stores in most large towns which regularly host games and events with other people. It can get very expensive I must admit but you can buy 2nd hand miniatures from eBay for much cheaper.
3D modelling, digital painting, photography, cycling, and knitting although it’s been a while since I did the latter. Need to get back into it.
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.
- 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!
My main hobbies are baking, reading, and video games. I love looking up recipes and combining parts of that recipe and techniques I learned from other places. I enjoy baking because it is so scientific and I can experiment and see what turns out well.
For books, well I have ADHD and have a hard time focusing. so I listen to audiobooks when I drive or clean my apartment. I’m a big fantasy nerd and am very into Brandon Sanderson specifically.
Other than that I tend to cycle through artistic hobbies and have accumulated quite a lot of art supplies. l
