adult hobbies

[amw]

This week has been less than optimal. There's the usual work stuff, okay, but outside of that my mind has gone off on one of its spirals, the kind of spiral i haven't been on since the Finding Clothes For An Ogre Debacle of April 2024

Comments

[siglinde99]

Can you count looking up cool stuff and researching the shit out of options as a hobby? Seriously - if you could flip the mindset to it not being about actually buying the thing (or feeling bad later about not buying the thing), but instead just enjoying the quest for the idea of the thing, maybe it would help?

[amw]

Thank you so much for this comment. I didn't really look at it that way, but if you see my noodling around reading about stuff that i then don't buy as an extension of my non-fiction reading/wikihole hobby, then actually it fits! I am learning about all this stuff as i look into it - reading manuals, reviews and so on. Like, in the old days, when people bought magazines about cars or photography or fashion, it wasn't because they necessarily wanted to buy all the things, they just liked to read and think about those things. Good perspective!

[siglinde99]

Also, I like that picture of you.

[king_of_apathy]

I never imagined that you'd ever done boxing!

I lived in a hostel in New Zealand for a few months that had a river running behind it and kayaks you could borrow. It was fantastic :) In London my ex and I nearly bought a flat next to a canal. The same canal ran all the way to past my workplace, so I figured I could kayak to work! Though in the end it didn't pan out.

My hobbies now are hiking and the very occasional chess game and pub visit.
Hobbies that I haven't had the time for recently are novel writing, video games and travel.

And yep, old hobbies do lead to an accumulation of junk. I walked back to my old apartment building this morning to retrieve my bike from the underground car park. It was coated in dust and has two flats! Now it's sitting on the balcony of our new place until I have the time to get it fixed.

[amw]

I got into boxing when i moved to Canada and didn't have any money or work permission... It's a great hobby for when you feel like you're powerless, because hitting shit really hard (including other people) is empowering. The gym i went to had a program for domestic violence survivors and it was awesome seeing the way it could transform people's confidence, i'm a really big proponent of boxing now despite coming from a middle class family that kinda looked down on it as a low class pursuit.

Do they have share bikes in Busan? I find i cycle so much more in places where you can just jump onto a bike wherever and whenever you like, there's less planning involved.

[king_of_apathy]

I've never tried it. Growing up as a JW it was a big no-no as they were always against any type of fighting or 'violent' sport. I can imagine hitting stuff being cathartic, but my upper body strength is feeble so I feel I'd embarrass myself trying it in the gym!

Busan has quite a few bike rental places, but no real share bike. I just googled 'share bike Korea' and it looks like Seoul has a proper share bike scheme.

[pinstripe_bindi]

I have... so many hobbies. My stylist (like most Americans with terrible health insurance she's the closest thing I have to a shrink) thinks I have ADHD because I'm always babbling about some different thing I just got super into. Photography and collecting vintage cameras. Embroidery and cross stitch. Collecting fountain pens and maintaining mail-based friendships (for some reason I hate the term "pen palling"). Painting and coloring books. Essential oils. I guess you could classify my interest in folk Catholicism and Hoodoo as a hobby, because at heart I'm really an atheist. I don't like, actually believe maintaining a hurricane altar will keep hurricanes away, it's just a way to manage anxiety about them. I kind of want to get a kayak too, because there are a lot of things I'd like to photograph in Louisiana that would be much easier to get to with one. I'm probably too fat... maybe a canoe?

Like you I don't really consider cooking to be a hobby--maybe baking counts--and I don't count reading either because that's just too

[amw]

Oh, i posted on a different thread this link, but you might like it too: https://peoplesriverhistory.us/project/history/ There's definitely some good ways to travel the bayous that doesn't necessarily have to be a kayak. Something i saw in Canada while i was bike touring were fishing skiffs with electric engines. They're almost completely silent and one of the coolest things i ever saw, especially after spending a year living in California where you go up to the popular lake/reservoir areas and it's all jet skis and pontoon boats and other loud and stinky stuff.

I always feel inspired by people who have lots of hobbies, i don't think it's a bad thing. As long as you are enjoying it all, why not?

[geminiwench]

If more people talked about our nonsensical spirals... maybe we could all learn from eachother a little bit easier rather than so many people hoping therapy or pills will 'fix' them passively somehow rather than investing in learning how to navigate the choppy personal waters and pilot ourselves through our own rocky bays and headwinds with the tips and advice we can glean from other worn and wary self-travelers