Barebow archery, penspinning, homelab / home network, misc. coding projects I rarely finish.

Penspinning started as a kid as a selfstimming activity since I annoyed people with bouncing leg and table drumming. Looking back, I don’t know why it took 30 years to get ADHD diagnosis.

Barebow archery started by doing a team activity intro archery and I noticed it immediately cured my chronic shoulder pain. It turned out to be inferred pain from Infraspinatus, not shoulder per se.

Homelab/network just stem from my desire to have a carefully controlled environment due to deep distrust in… well, everything.

Coding projects usually start by me having a specific need or problem, then I start fixing it, and generally end up over-engineering it.

Archery, penspinning and coding are relatively cheap hobbies. Homelab/network doesn’t need to be expensive either. All of these CAN absolutely be money sinks, especially homelab/networks and archery, but starting out is affordable.

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I woodwork, set up servers, build guns, garden,play guitar, design furniture, and teach others to do each of those things.

I try to do anything that regular people have figured out on their own. If someone can do something without training, I can probably figure it out in a few weeks.

I don’t watch things, and I don’t use social media outside of Lemmy on occasion. Because of that, I seem to have far more time than the average person.

I like exploring abandoned buildings, it’s called Urbex (portmanteau of Urban Exploration) but not all the sites are in urban environments.

Photography also goes hand in hand with that.

Here’s a website to see the sorts of places people do

https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/

Hiking - got into it because I was in the scouts as a kid. I found it boring and exhausting and onerous as a kid, until I went on my first backpacking trip. For me at least, feeling committed to a multiday journey from A to B kind of removed the distractions and what-ifs, and allowed me to really sink into the experience of being outside like nothing else had. Going backpacking is my number one trick for becoming a happier human - exercise, in nature, good circadian rhythm, disconnected from the internet.

Climbing. Got into it because I was looking for friends to go backpacking with in college, and they were into climbing, too. While backpacking can feel very relaxing, climbing feels very in-the-moment. A difficult route will challenge you in any number of ways - physically, as your lungs burn and your forearms start giving out; mentally, as you try to figure out a sequence of moves to make it up while managing the risk of falling; and emotionally, as you work through your fear of falling off and balance your mind between focusing on the task at hand and being open to all possibilities. You develop great friendships, since you tend to get comfortable with someone you are trusting your life with pretty quick. There is always something new to learn, as there are many disciplines from gym to outdoor, rock to ice to aid to mountain, and boulder to sport to trad. And it takes you to amazing places - sure, you can plan a trip to Chamonix or Thailand to go skiing or hang out on the beach. But when you make plans with a climbing partner, you actually buy the plane tickets. You fly in and immediately depart from the normal tourist circuit, getting a much better feel for life for the people in the areas you are travelling in. Then you show up in your destination, and you don’t just look at the beautiful scenary - you are part of it. You don’t just look at the mountain - you are perched on a tiny ledge on the side of it, watching the birds hover next to you while your partner cruxes out on the next pitch above.

Canyoneering. Similar to climbing, but easier to do with lots of friends of various skill levels. While climbing is often a fairly serious endeavor with defined goals, a canyon just has a single general goal that the whole group works on together: get out of the canyon. Thus, canyons tend to be a lot more fun and social, and often involve silly shenanigans like throwing a bag over a wall to have a rope to climb, or standing on a friend’s shoulders while another lets you grab their foot to lower yourself over an edge.

DIY. I dunno, I just intrinsically like the idea of being able to build and fix all my own shit. Sometimes this feels less like a hobby and more like a job, but it is hard to beat the satisfaction of finishing a project that then makes your life better every time you use it.

Climbing/bouldering. As a not overly sporty nerdy type, I found this to be amazing. All the climbs are called problems and require you to think about how you’re using your body to solve them.

99% of the community is amazing because it’s not really a vs sports in a traditional sense. It’s you vs the wall and even if you do something that is ‘easy’ for someone else if they can see you tried hard they will be pysched for you.

There are lots of beginner groups and meet up days or if you go on regular days, you’ll end up talking to the same people about the climb you’re doing so you build friendship as an adult which is difficult otherwise.

Also it’s not in front of a screen which I love.

I’d try looking for your local gym and doing the intro course and seeing if it vibes with you.

I have a ton of abandoned or occasional hobbies but the main one I have atm is leatherwork.

Honestly I don’t fully understand what lead me to it but I saw some videos and it was like, not only do I want to do this but I want to do it properly.

So I didn’t do my normal thing of buying a ton of equipment, getting in way over my head and abandoning to the pile of failed hobbies. I booked a beginner course at a place near me and the rest is history. Been slowly building up my skills and techniques and getting really good feedback from people. Some of my recent items even have people saying that if I was to open a shop then they would be interested in buying or commissioning…

If you want to see my stuff then just have look at my post history, I should really just make a site or something at this point… Most of my stuff is small goods, accessories etc. but be warned I’ve just created a new community to have somewhere for the darker side of crafts (mildly NSFW) - but if anyone is interested in the spicier side of crafting then come join me there!

Fish tank, houseplants, vacuuming the floors, doing the dishes.

Two are passive hobbies that require more work but only once in a while

Two are things that need done that i treat like hobbies so something fucking gets done around here

I might have ADHD

Hunting.

Got into it via family that hunts, but I live in a part of the country where I’d eventually have slipped into it no matter what.

You never learn as much about nature as when you’re out there. And then you never know if you’ll be lucky or your prey will be.

This year:

• Picking and processing psychedelic mushrooms -cheap

• Replacing phone & tablet screens -surprisingly cheap

• Mountain biking - not cheap

My hobby is collecting items for new hobbies, lol. Mostly board games and various arts and crafts (miniature painting, clay sculpting, felting, watercolor, knitting, etc.).

Knitting: I knew a lot of people who did it and I wanted to fit in, plus it was something to do blindly and with my hands.

Mini painting: started from unpainted minis in a board game I bought. I fell out of the habit due to constant blurry vision for a couple years, but now my partner and I have friends who love mini painting so they came over once a month or so and we paint together.

Watercolors: I loved the fun and messy chaos I saw some artists make and wanted to do that. Instead I learned I’m way too much of a “color in the lines” person. But before learning that, I painted a pet portrait for my niece for Christmas and she loved it so much she asked for a new one every year. So a hobby I probably would have totally stopped has continued with at least one painting a year for five years now, and I have to admit I’m pretty good at pet portraits.

Felting: washing my cat’s favorite blanket once produced little felt balls of her fur and one looked like a little creature. I just had to put eyeballs and a tongue on it so I learned the basics of felting.

Clay sculpting: I wanted to make a figure of my then-boyfriend’s favorite LoL character for him. I’ve picked it up again whenever I’ve had a vision but it’s rare.

Reading (it takes the right book), stargazing, fixing things, breaking things when I thought I was fixing them, hiking, sitting on logs, weed/music, biking, dancing. It’s mostly stuff I did or was exposed to when I was young. It’s all most average skill levels at best. At some point, I realized my time is limited and it could end any moment. I stopped worrying about being maximally productive and stopped worrying about not maximizing skill/avoiding things I’m not good at. Do whatever brings you joy. I’ve tried to spend less time bumming on my phone since it’s so easy and so empty.

I liquidated my investments years ago for a cash need. It’s cool to be part of some money-making scheme, but I’d say in total, I don’t miss addiction of checking performance of the rollercoaster through the casino. I felt bad when it was red, felt like I didn’t bet enough when it’s green. It never actually moves fast. Things improved when I limited myself to checking weekly. On average, the line will go up and to the right. I’ll feed index funds eventually again, but for now, I’m just holding in a high yield savings.

I paint minis, focusing mostly on Warhammer right now and I’m telling myself I’m going to start playing.

I started with the Reaper minis learn to paint sets, they do a pretty good job of teaching you the basics, give you a couple minis to start with and a workable if somewhat limited set of paints and brushes.

It sounds a lot harder than it actually is. If you dilute your paints down right it kind of tends to flow exactly where you want it to.

Sourcing minis to paint can get pricey depending on what you like and where you get them from. To support that hobby I’ve also taken up 4d printing, if you hunt around a bit you should be able to get a used resin printer for pretty cheap (but don’t skimp on proper PPE and ventilation, liquid resin is pretty nasty stuff)

I dabble in a little bit of woodworking. Nothing too fancy, I’m not doing intricate carving or anything, but once in a while I find a problem in need of a solution and think of a way I could build that solution myself from some boards and hardware and while I may not be saving any money over buying some off-the-shelf solution to that problem, I do think a lot of those thing I’ve made have ended up being better than anything I could have bought and they are certainly more satisfying to use knowing I made them myself.

I camp, hike, and fish a lot. These can get pricey if you let them, but you can probably get enough fishing gear to go catch some fish for like $50. Depending on where you live, you can hit a lot of trails with just a sturdy pair of sneakers, a water bottle, and maybe a pocket full of snacks. And you can probably outfit yourself for some decent weekend at a state park campground for about $100 worth of Walmart gear (tento sleeping bag sleeping pad,) and some stuff you probably already have at home (flashlight, matches/lighter, first aid kit, some pots and pans)

Reading of course is always a worthy hobby, and you can pair it with some of the others. (I sometimes joke that the reason I fish is because it sounds better than saying ”I’m going to go off into the woods alone to sit on a bucket by a stream and read a book”)

I also enjoy cooking, trying out new recipes and such.

I’ve dabbled in a little ham radio. It didn’t particularly hold my interest, I liked tinkering with radios and it’s cool being able to talk to people far away with your equipment, but that equipment can get really pricey (there are often good deals on used stuff but you need to know where to look for them and be patient) and at the end of the day you can really only talk to other hams, and they mostly fall into 3 main categories.

1. Radio nerds- all they want to talk about is ham radio.
2. Old guys who want to talk about their medical issues.
3. Weird paranoid prepper types.

And since the whole point of radios is to talk to other people, and I don’t particularly enjoy the kinds of conversations those people want to have, I never really got too into it.

Baking. It can be as simple and inexpensive, or as elaborate and costly as you want. It’s very beginner friendly. And even most of your failures end up delicious.

I’ve been trying many things over time but the ones that really became hobbies are the ones that just happened to me. And those are hiking, cooking and photography.

I think one problem these days is that we try too hard from the start. We hear about this interesting thing and then watch videos about it by some influencer and then we feel we need to learn this or buy that first but in the end none of that is necessary. If hiking is for you then you will enjoy it even in sandals and jeans. If not then it might not be a hobby for you. Eventually you will learn what you personally need to enjoy it even more and go to the next level. And then invest into it knowing exactly what you want.

Same with photography. You can take some serious photos with modern phones already and develop your skills with that. I took some back then with an iPhone 4 that I still love (although they look bad when zoomed in). The limitation is what makes you creative and you always have it with you.

Of course some things do have a steep learning curve and do need some initial investment. I just personally never got into any of those and I’m pretty satisfied.