What is something like a hobby or skill that you belive almost anybody should give a try, and what makes your suggestion so good compared to other things?
i feel like this is a descent question i guess.
At work, I have a reputation for being the guy who never shuts up about trying to get new people into scuba diving. If there are 2 or more divers at the lunch table I honestly feel a little bad for everybody else. The cost of getting trained and renting or buying all your gear can scare people away, but I would at least strongly recommend that anybody on an island vacation or cruise at least try a “discover Scuba” class. You’ll learn everything you need to know to not die by watching a quick video, and working in a pool, then you get to go have an amazing dive in the ocean with an instructor.
An instrument. It’s soul food and extremely therapeutic. Even if you suck, just learn to let it go. I find it’s really good for my mental health. I dunno, it’s music ya know? Lol
I’m really grateful my parents pushed me to start playing the violin at 5, because it massively enriched my life. Even when I was bullied, abused, and miserable, playing my violin would help pick me up just a bit.
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ive been wanting to get into game dev but it seems like alot of work and i suck at everything, also im limted with software and im not even sure what game engine or thing to use, if that makes sense. do you hav eany advice or something you want to share?
I reccomend trying out GB studio. It makes gameboy games and comes as one binary file. Not too crazy to learn. I liked the music player thing.
Python with PyGame can be quite a good start. And if you’re just trying to build something for fun maybe use free assets from the internet.
Taught myself python at 50 years of age. My God, being able to code is like a superpower. I started out doing some things to make my job easier, later developed an interest in web scraping and data analysis, now I am tinkering with machine learning. I regret listening to people who told me that a strong background in math is required for coding.
Knot tying is a handy skill and easy to acquire. All you need is a short length of rope and watch a few videos. There may be thousands of knots you can learn, but most people should take the trouble to learn a few tried and true knots. Maybe you want to move a mattress on the roof of your car. Maybe you want to tie a pen to a clipboard. Maybe you want to tie back the legs when roasting a turkey. Maybe you need an impromptu collar & leash for a stray dog. Maybe you have to move a huge bundle of brush you’ve cut. Maybe you want to tie neat looking stopper knots on your hoodie’s drawstring. Knowing how to tie a few different knots will give you options when you’re trying to get stuff done.
Writing and drawing!
It requires no upfront investment, can be done individually, and it’s one of the few arts which is constrained by skill rather than budget. You can write a bestseller novel with just your computer but good luck doing a blockbuster film on your own.
ive always wanted to create a book or a comic but i stink at everything and im bad at spelling, i can only draw stickmen, but i still have the urge to be creativ eand share it.
You should check out My New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable and Get Your War On by David Rees.
He made a great comic strip that didn’t involve any drawing skill at all.
Drawing gets a lot easier if you approach it as a muscle-memory skill like calisthenics or juggling - if you can write letters neatly, you can also learn to draw shapes you’ve practiced. The early exercises in books like Keys to Drawing (Dodson) or The Natural Way to Draw (Nicolaides) introduce ways to practice those skills, and then the rest is “find subjects you want to draw”, which can be as simple as watching a video, pausing it, and quickly using that for the exercise. Do that for a few minutes a day for a few weeks and drawing skills will magically emerge.
There are tons of “how to draw tutorials” that don’t explain any of this, speak about it conceptually, and tell you to go draw a thousand cubes, which will make you better at drawing…cubes. (There is some point to that kind of technical skill, but it’s not the thing to invest in if you just want to use images to tell a story)
For writing, practice writing short stories using writing prompts (I normally use Reddit’s /r/writingprompts but I’m trying to find an alternative here) and post them on the thread even if they suck. The commitment is low since it’s a short story and you can afford to twist the story to match your writing style rather than the other way around. You’ll also get votes and feedback from other members.
I started drawing as a kid, stopped for a while, and got back to it in my teens since I started doing a lot of writing then and wanted to visually depict what was happening as well. One thing that helped me a lot was to not look at other people’s art or photographs but rather solely work with what you’re visualizing in your mind and reiterate (with many many strokes) until the quality becomes acceptable. Use pencil and sketch with short and light lines. The point here is to develop your own intuition for perspective, splitting an object into basic shapes, and so forth.
I’ll also add that it’s extremely important to create your own style both for writing and drawing. Make your stuff look good, but always keep in mind that it’s fine to have your own quirks and distinctions. E.g. if your lines are a bit sketchy or if your circles aren’t perfect that can easily be part of your style.
Sounds like you just volunteered to start the writingprompts magazine.
There already is a https://kbin.social/m/WritingPrompts, but there isn’t much content.
Takes time. I always wanted to be part of r/writingprompts but I would see a new prompt and the there would be a novel written about that prompt 30 seconds later. I can type pretty well but that is out of my league.
I’ve always made up for the lack of prompts with other people’s art, primarily images of any kind. I often see some sci-fi picture, think it’s neat, and write a short story involving the scene at some point.
Simon Stalenhåg is a great starter.
Basic knitting. It’s a great way to relax in the evenings. And makes for good gifts.
Playing an instrument. The challenge of playing successfully a melody will give you more reward than listening to a good one.
Self-hosting. You learn how to use Linux, security, managing services, and after all that you have your own little ship on the internet. After all that you gain a massive understanding of how the internet and the technology you use daily work and run (to an extent).
Sewing is useful and satisfying. I’d like to say it’s also easy but I have never figured it out myself (which doesn’t say much, anything that involves using my hands is… questionable)
Mindfulness and Breathwork! Mindfulness is an incredibly valuable practice that can be a game changer for mental health and anxiety. Breathwork goes a long way as a fundamental technique.
There are a variety of free tier apps like InsightTimer that have beginner courses in meditation. Working to create space in your life between things like work and family give you breathing room. Starting to live in the moment allows you to step out of the anxiety of the past and worry of the future.
I’m not saying mindfulness can’t have serious benefits. However, I would caution anyone who’s into it to read the book McMindfulness. A lot of the “science” behind it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, there can be genuine drawbacks to it, and it’s often used in unethical ways–like to make CEOs of ruthless companies more able to shove aside their feelings of guilt, or to sharpen the minds of soldiers for killing.
Wait, there’s people making money off of this shit‽ Like, my therapist and I work on mindfulness, but for me that just means being present in my body (not escaping into books/games/videos), considering my wants and needs, and listening to my emotions (even when they’re unpleasant). Is there some other definition? I like talking to people about it, but I’ll have to be more specific about what I mean in the future if there’s someone out there selling something.
I mean, look up “mindfulness” on Amazon. There are a million books for sale out there. And people like John Kabat-Zinn have made plenty of money selling mindfulness to everyone from mental health clinics to the military.
Mindfulness in this context is generally just defined as paying attention to the present moment. But that’s ethically neutral and can be used to, for example, make the horrors of late-stage capitalism more bearable for its subjects, or to help soldiers focus on the act of killing rather than the horror of it.
Ham radio. It’s a lot of fun and has something for everyone. I like the outdoors, so I took my portable gear to a park and operated Parks on the Air today. There are all kinds of digital modes for people who love computers, there’s morse code, there’s using kites to hoist your antenna, hot air balloons, talking with the space station, etc. All kinds of stuff. If you’re the least bit nerdy, it likely has something for you.
Can confirm. Resources are downright obscenely easy to get hold of especially for getting a tech license. Ditto radios. From el cheapo baofeng to something still cheap but nicer is anywhere from a half to quarter the price of the htx202 I learned on in the 90’s, and getting resources on repeaters is also shockingly comprehensive (I had gotten a little red book with bible print sized text with listings.)
Getting into HF is a bit more involved ditto specialty modes, but it is genuinely interesting and worthy of looking at even if you decide to not dive in.
My Dad was hugely into ham radio throughout the time I was growing up, and yeah, it was the quintessential nerd hobby before home computers came along.
Hiking.
Getting up amongst the fells and mountains, mostly in isolation from noise and other people. Sure there’s touristy spots where alot head to but there’s still plenty of other, maybe slightly more difficult to hike places if you wanted pure zen.
Navigation is important, don’t just go up with Google maps expecting her to tell you when the next left is. Get some research done, and head out. Don’t overcomplicate things with buying loads of gear that youtubers “recommend”, don’t send it up a 3000ft hike either. A slight ascent, around a lake - start small, find your feet and grow from there.
The best thing I could ever have started for my mental health.
Juggling is fun and makes you really great at throwing things (but only mildly better at catching them hehe) 👍
Two things: chess and piano. I downloaded the chess.com app and play whenever I’m idling for more than a few minutes. Got to a very proficient respectable level in a few months, and it’s a ton of fun, endless combinations, no upper limit to how good you can get.
I also bought a cheap keyboard for under $300 and got proficient at it within a few months. Half hour here, twenty minutes there, an hour there. I’m not Chopin or anything and I can barely even play him but again, respectable.
So now if you ever go somewhere and see a chess set or a piano you can be like hey I know what to do with that!
cheap keyboard for under $300
for a second I thought I was on /c/mechanicalkeyboards and thought “omg i wouldn’t say that’s cheap”
Chess is such a great game that really makes you think critically about your thinking, I enjoy playing it anytime I am feeling brain fog from antidepressants as it keeps me in the real world.
One lesson I’ve taken away from it is that playing good chess is much less about coming up with astonishing brilliant moves than I thought. It’s more about making good decisions, positioning yourself well, and continuously applying pressure. If you keep doing that you will have good results most of the time. Great life lesson, hit me in the face like a ton of metaphors when I realized that.
Absolutely. I’d argue it’s one of the best games to teach kids, siblings, etc.
I plan on teaching my nephew when he turns 10 as a way to help him think about things critically in which he can apply to the real world.
Skill wise, though I believe this would apply to many here already, analyzing and critical thinking in regard to use of technology.
For instance, checking which apps and extensions you use on your devices and see if you need them. Likewise, look thoroughly when trying or testing software to prevent you from being part of a malicious extension campaign. Check which apps are connected to your SSO (single sign on) accounts like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, etc.; doing this regularly especially if you’re one to try new apps and software, ensures that once you no longer use them, they can’t keep getting your data.
Critical thinking in regard to questioning if a company, person, or app is social engineering you in attempt for money or control your choices. Think Facebook with when you’re deleting an account, it’s showing the profile pics of people you talk to most and telling you “these friends will miss you” in an attempt to guilt-trip you not to using it. Same thing with software like VPNs or any security software telling you that you’re not safe without their software or a service trying to get you back by emailing you saying they miss you and trying to sway you to spend more money with coupons, marketing emails, etc.
