Everything that takes the mind off of all the stress of contemporary life.
I love my time on my bicycle and my time spent fixing it up.
I really enjoy board games and ttrpgs
Also huge fan of getting the tar beaten out of me in my local kink scene, but that’s not a hobby for everyone
Oh and the wife has gotten me hiking more with her, which has been good for us both
Arson.
Photo walks. Your whole point just becomes to go out and take in the scenery. Makes you slow down and appreciate your surroundings in a way that a walk doesn’t. If you’re after wildlife you have to move with intention, lest you scare the subject. If it’s a more static subject you’ve more time to take in the light and shadows, frame your background.
Also a very good practice in Mindfulness! Lovely Idea.
Running. Just one foot in front of the other. Bonus points for running in a new place and taking in the sights.
What does your mind do when you’re running? Can you just clear all thoughts and focus on breathing and one foot after the other.
Or does the repetition make you spiral on every bad decision from the last 20 years like me 😅
My mind is writing books or short stories that will never be set on a paper, inventing new things that I have no idea how they’d work, but most importantly, my mind is busy arguing with others, and winning every argument :)
I am like you, running is good exercise but too boring and I can’t stop thinking. Aerobic dance like Jazzercise is perfectly calibrated so that I can just follow/do and not think but the class near me ended, they are only out in the suburbs now. Yoga is good if it’s the challenging vinyasa flow with music, I can sometimes get into that perfect mindset. But fucking Jazzercise was oddly perfect and is gone.
Start a group!
Off-what? You mean in meatspace?
Jokes aside: Reading. Designing and playing Pen&Paper RPGs. Cooking.
Would you mind talking a bit more about your approach to cooking? I take some satisfaction from being able to cook and sometimes from the feeling of improving my skill as a cook, but mostly it feels like a necessary chore.
Sure! But it’s not particularly sophisticated. Other than staple recipes (like e.g. vegetables stews) I learned while growing up, when there’s a product I was previously dependent on buying ready-made that gets enshittified by the food industry so much I’m unwilling to pay the full asking price, I start looking into the recipe for it and experiment to calibrate quality, time efficiency, and material cost to the exact tradeoff I consider best for me. Frozen pizza vs self made pizza being one example.
My joy in cooking, aside from the above optimization process I find fun, comes from knowning I pay less money to eat a better quality (and almost always less unhealthy) meal than I’d otherwise be able to. Once I have a recipe dialed in, it also requires virtually no thinking to get done, which is the opposite of my daily work; that’s the “unwinding” for me. I can then also combine it with listening to some audiobook or TTRPG actual play / podcast.
Due to this depth-first approach my actual list of recipes isn’t incredibly large, but it’s enough to never get boring by now, at least.
Cheap drum machine (korg volca drum), cheap synthesizer, plugged into mixer + no talent + no formal music theory knowledge == unlimited hours of enjoyment. Someday, I might even make something I like.
I haven’t dreamed when sleeping for a few years really now
Been reading dungeon crawler Carl and it’s the first time I’m dreaming mostly every night now. Just more relaxed
Taking some magnesium supplement will fix not dreaming right up!
I already take supplements. My issue is that my mind tends to constantly think. I used to read a lot (and dreampt constantly then)… So, I think this is the main factor
I build things, electronics mostly. Then the next day I get to admire what yesterday-me built.
This might sound weird but, before bed I try to do basically nothing, I just sit on the couch & let myself relax, maybe with a little reading on the side.
Really interesting way of meditation. Doing nothing is really hard.
Smoking weed, hooking into my mp3 player, then going to the park to vibe on the swing
Gardening, dancing, sex, reading, exercise, cooking, riding the electric bike, going to see live music (people are always filming on their phones but I don’t, prefer to just experience it).
Not much. It feels like everything has to involve the internet. Reading i guess?
Try shutting off the phone and unplugging the router. I guarantee youll find things to do and probably reverse some of the brainrot!
Sometimes I think kids think the internet has existed as long as humans. Its literally a brand new thing compared to humanity. We do not need it.
I’m so damn glad I didnt have it at a young age !
I like downloading a couple hundred tiktoks and scrolling them offline for a couple hours at a time
Not sure if this counts as “offline” but I play video games, read books, edibles, and because I’m in my late 30’s I’ve recently picked up bird watching!
I mean, do video games count? Theres millions that aren’t online.
Otherwise, reading gardening sewing woodwork music singing drawing painting walking cleaning board games calling a friend write a letter cook food
The Internet and tech bros have fried everyone’s brains.
