I just graduated optometry school and I feel like I’ve lost a bit of my identity. I didn’t have much free time to focus on the things that make me happy and now I’m lacking inspiration. I can’t work until my license is approved so I’ve had days of doing nothing since May 7. It’s been great but it’s starting to get boring; I can only play so much Zelda and doom scroll so often.
So whatcha got? What do you like to do? What are some hobbies or passions everyone has? What are non-drinking related activities to do with a partner or friends?
Have you heard of lemmy? It’s s pretty good time waster. Also, crochet, woodworking, reading, pets, duolingo, learning a fun cheaper instrument like bongos, ukulele, or cajon.
Haha no what’s that?!
I’ve spent soooo many hours on Reddit and now lemmy. It is so addicting for me and I’d like to stop being on my phone so much. I HAVE been wanting to learn Spanish. It would help in my professional life and my husband is Hispanic and his parents/extended family primarily speak it. Thanks for the reminder and all the other wonderful suggestions! I do crochet amigurumi but I burnt myself out a bit by trying to sell them.
There’s a crochet community. Might help your crojo.
For short Spanish lessons, I recommend the free podcast from Coffee Break Spanish: https://coffeebreaklanguages.com/coffeebreakspanish/
With friends: D&D or board/card/tabletop games. Pick a night and get together every week or whatever works for everyone. Play the same game or something different each week. Settlers of Catan and Cards Against Humanity are other games that jump to mind for me.
Generally: read, write/paint/draw/model/etc., learn to play an instrument, cook/bake, learn something new via podcast or videos. Most of these things can be done with others if you choose.
I have gotten back into cooking and meal planning some amazing meals. I used to do sourdough but my starter was neglected to the point of death. RIP. Maybe I’ll start anew! Always looking for fun and interesting topics to learn about which fuels my lemmy addiction.
Hiking, cycling, photography, reading, video games, chilling in a hammock, going out to eat, cooking, writing, watching movies or shows, and obsessively learning about some new hobby I will inevitably lose interest in and then pick back up in a year or so.
Man I felt that last sentence in my soul. I am constantly picking up different hobbies and dropping them. I like the idea of cycling. My husband used to and he’s been wanting to get back into it so that would be something we could do together sometimes.
I’d consider cars as a (expensive) hobby of mine… So doing work on my vehicles or driving. I kill tons of time doing that.
Pick up guitar lessons.
I actually bought an acoustic to do some self lessons on during my externship year but couldn’t commit to one thing. I guess I need some guidance on the best way to approach it. Any suggestions for YouTube channels or books to follow?
If you’re going self taught, you can’t go wrong with JustinGuitar.com. He has some great lessons and it’s all free. You can upgrade and he has paid stuff, but I’ve never done them. If you are in the right place and can swing it, take some classes. If you find the right instructor it’ll be awesome. I didn’t take lessons for years but finally sprung for them. I don’t think it’s made a difference that I can tell but my wife says I’m paying much better.
JustinGuitar is the shit for free Find a School of Rock or an instructor to on-ramp faster.
I’ll check the site out, thanks for sending it. I do have an old buddy that opened his own studio so I’ll look him up and see what his openings are like! I am a decent self learner but there is always things you can learn better with proper instructions!
Good luck dude. I’ll add one more thought…I just switched instructors and it is like a breath of fresh air and I am so excited to get after it. Not that my first instructor was bad, they were just not for me at this point in my journey.
Similar situation - I’d been at a job for about 10 years that robbed me of all of my time, but didn’t pay me enough to comfortably stay home or take vacations.
I went freelance but current events happened and now I’m home a lot. I beat Elden Ring. I put like 100 hours into Rimworld. Gaming can get super depressing in a concentrated binge, so what I also have done:
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Backpacking. Nerd out on gear for a week or so, go to REI and drop some money, and go walk for days at a time. I love it. Most recently just did a 15 mile out, sleep, 15 mile back trip and it definitely was good on my brain (rough on my body)
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DIY tech projects. I had a couple raspberry pis around. One is now a synth / sequencer / workstation with a midi keyboard using the Zynthian OS and the other is going to do some self-hosting.
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Fixing my furnace. This one isn’t one I recommend.
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Cigars for me, but any kind of highly indulgent consumable that people like to talk about. Chocolate, wine, cheese, etc.
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Exploring. You’d be amazed what you can find just walking around. A friend just showed me a crazy underground stream that I’ve been walking over for YEARS now and I had no idea it existed. Going to go check it out.
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Plants and Birds. I have a front porch. My days of nothing to do usually start with about an hour or so on the porch with a cigar, watching and trying to identify the birds that come to my feeder and admiring the progress of my plants that are growing out there.
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More of a passion, falconry. I’m in deep. It’s really a lifestyle, basically when making a life decision I think about how it will effect my falconry.
Here’s one of my goobers:
Favorite time killer with friends has been gaming, we have had a semi steady group going through different games for many years.
Favorite active activity/passion has been BJJ. Still terrible at it, still can’t wait to get back on the mats and get swept again.
I think BJJ or some other form of martial arts would be a great outlet to release some pent up aggression and rage. I may look into gyms around my area after I begin working.
Building Gundam model kits. Started simple and worked my way up to Master Grades. It’s a cheap hobby and very fulfilling as one has visible, tangible things to do, and they take just the right amount of time to paint and assemble.
Exercise! If you can integrate that into your routine or even identity, you can get a lifelong benefit. But it has to be fun, since you want to make it a hobby. Try joining a dancing class, rock climbing, boxing gym, jogging group, or whatever you can do for fun. I’m unique because I play DanceDanceRevolution, which gives a explicit reason to improve my stamina and aerobic capacity. 45 minutes on a treadmill goes by fast with rhythm game music.
For partner activites, get into a boardgame group! I’m talking Carcassonne, Coup, One Night Werewolf, and an infinite many more. Some gamestores have a place to play TCGs and offer some demo games to play. There’s probably a group there or online looking for an player, especially in college towns.
Hiking, kayaking, swimming, gardening, and mycology! I love growing Gourmet mushies to eat, as I’m vegetarian and some of the varieties I grow I can’t get in my area easily. It’s not too hard for some basic mushrooms (blue and pink oysters are where I’d start), and it is fascinating to see the mycelium grow.
Gourmets would be so fun to grow! I did some actives awhile back for microdosing and it was so hard not to check on the tubs every couple hours. I had my eyes in lions mane at one point but never ordered any. What are some other ones you like and how do you like cook/prepare them? I’ve also wanted to get into wild foraging but need to do more research for what’s in my area and ensure I don’t bring home poisonous ones.
I love eating lions mane as well (taste and medicinal properties), also king blue oysters seem to be the most reliable strain I currently have. Lions mane can be used as a sub for crab, or you can press it for a steak sub. King blue oysters are a relatively newly bred strain, good oyster taste with maybe a hint of shrimp. I generally either fry mushies in butter with some salt and pepper, or actually follow a recipe if I’m trying anything more complex. If you are planning to grow them, the main equipment is start with is a pressure cooker for sterilizing spawn (I use a wild bird seed tek for my grain jars). Then just use hardwood fuel pellets and pasteurize them with boiling water in an autoclavable bag for when moving to bulk.
I’ve got most of those things already. I need to procure some sort of small greenhouse-like chamber to maintain humidity. For my actives, I covered my tubs with plastic bags which worked fantastic but not sure that would work with gourmet. Perhaps this will be my winter project later this year!
Should work the same, so long as you cut smallish holes on the autoclave bags the moisture will remain pretty decent. The more finicky bit is making sure there is enough FAE (fresh air exchange) as well. Would open the bags at least once a day, fan it, mist and close back. Also, not really much of a winter project, more of a late spring through autumn one.
Well, you mentioned Zelda so gaming’s accounted for. I also do some writing. I started out doing it in my head/fanfiction-y and eventually published a couple chapters with more to follow eventually. After simmering things around enough, I got some stories that are good/unique enough to begin writing novels about so I also work on those in my spare time. (Plus a few stories that’d work better in webcomic or GB Studio video game format, but I haven’t started practical work on either yet.)
Aside from that, I dabble in Linux/computers and such.
I do have a gaming laptop but I suspect the battery is spicy so it’s currently in exile. Otherwise I have been wanting to dabble a bit in computer stuff and an old laptop would’ve been the perfect toy to fuck around and find out on.
I like taking classes to learn new hobbies. I took a woodworking class last year and made a bench and coffee table. This year I took a watercolor class. Didn’t keep up with the woodworking because I don’t have a shop, but I’ve been watercoloring a TON since the class ended and I just love it. There’s lots of free lessons for all levels on YouTube
I have considered woodworking but I also don’t really have space to do it. I would love to take a class for it to learn some basics to go on! Watercolor could be interesting. I’m an absolutely terrible drawer and it’s discouraged me in the past.
My watercolor teacher encouraged us to not let our drawing/sketching abilities get in the way of painting. He gave us graphite paper which can be used to trace. I use that piece of graphite paper more often than not. Sometimes I’m in the mood to sketch something out but mostly I just want to get to painting right away, without sketching and erasing an image a thousand times until I’m happy with it
If there’s a makerspace in your area, they might have a woodworking workshop.
Improving my local OSM.
Video games and music are the two things that I usually go back to to waste time or do stuff with. Mostly on the PC because it can handle playing or making both without issue. Edit: well, learning to make one and practicing the other more to start making stuff that isn’t just something that rots in the hard drive. probably should have worded it differently lol
