I find that following my ADHD hyperfocus until the next shiny thing comes along has led to a massively diverse array of introductory knowledge and mediocre skills (as well as a garage stuffed full with bins of unfinished projects). Specifically in the last two years I have dabbled in:
home automation (incl. Node Red, LoRa, MQTT on Raspberry Pi)
weather stations
terrariums
greenhouse climate control
making wooden boxes
Minecraft
mechanical pencils
fountain pens
notebooks
bookbinding (custom notebooks)
Dungeons & Dragons
I realized years ago that I had to embrace the change and I try to dip my toe into any hobby that appeals at the time with as minimal monetary outlay as possible. I find interests tend to resurface after a while, and the skills/tools/materials for one can generally be used somewhere else down the road.
I have found that I learn something and increase my skillset with every unfinished project. That leads to, over the long run, being able to get more accomplished in less time on newer projects. The real treasures are the friends you made ^h^h^h^h^h things you learned along the way.
I've tried everything you have (except weather stations and mechanical pencils) but also make/play guitars, hobbyist electronics, paper making, painting/illustration, fixing up old cars, and MtG among others.
I realized I was being a little ridiculous when I started planning a peltier powered hydroponic cabinet for growing fresh wasabi. Most of that was to do with the disappointing results with peltier cooling temperature deltas.
The garage full of specialist tools is what kills me. I can't imagine how I'll ever use the vacuum chamber I built for epoxy stabilization again, but I have one.
I reused a fermentation setup for the hydroponic wasabi idea. I had some success with lettuce as a test subject but the humidity was not well-controlled which I think would be a problem. The thought of how much energy I'd have to use for years to keep the whole thing running just made it seem a bit ridiculous. Also, I'm not sure if I could reliably source wasabi seeds. I stick with super-hot peppers mostly which don't need a lot in the way of temperature control.
I reached a similar conclusion, luckily before doing too much building. I'm happy with terrariums so far, they scratch my 'living things in closed systems' itch.
Funny, I was sort of exploring the idea of aquaponics myself and I was trying to explain to someone what was at the root of my curiosity and I realized that it was enclosed ecosystems. I had fun giving the lettuce to people and explaining that it was grown without ever seeing natural sun or soil and showing them a timelapse video of the growth, but no one seemed all that impressed lol.
If you've never been, I can highly recommend a trip to "Biosphere 2" in Arizona which is a semi-retired monument to the whole idea, and quite worth the tour.
Keep leaning into it. Each new capability is a gateway to more. Now that you have rough vacuum you can start doing plasma experiments. That comes wrapped up with a bunch of lab / high voltage safety stuff, but also enables x-ray experiments. Could then branch off into intersections with crystals/minerals/chemistry. Anyway that is just one branch.
Fly Fishing
Skiing
Boat Restoration
Sauna (Built & Use)
Vinyl Records
Side Project Web Apps
Deck Pond
Etc.
As you suggest, interest come and go with the season and/or build on each other. Learning to accept that I will never be defined by a singular interest and embrace the generalist life.
I'd never heard it described this way, but man, this is me and my life in a nutshell! It always felt like a disadvantage. I always yearned to be more of an expert at any one particular thing, but like you, I've been trying to lean into it (with mixed success).
Can you describe how you do that? I mean, I can guess in general, because I have done a little carpentry earlier, and making boxes is somewhat common sense anyway (getting and assembling the pieces), but still would like to know how you do it.
I can guess the first part: you collect and cut the necessary wood pieces for the sides, top and bottom of the box. But even that is not fully obvious. What kind of pieces do you get?
Ones of a standard desired thickness, from a carpentry supplies or timber shop, or do you buy logs or planks and cut them to the desired thickness and length / width?
How do you fix them together? With nails/screws or some sort of glue? Not sure glue would work for thinner box sides.
Asking because I want to make some myself, to store things.
Almost the same here! ADHD and a lot of seasonal hobbies, like bookbinding (just love moleskine, and I started making my own) mechanical pencils (rotring ftw), paper in general
I second rotring! Especially 800 model, it's just so nice piece of precision machinery which combines ideally with Moleskin P notebook and leuchtturm pen holder (after retracting its tip 800 fits nicely on the side)
Mine is perhaps not well characterized as a hobby because it has religious meaning to me, but I spend a lot of time on it (10 hours per week on average, sometimes more). I'm very involved in my church and volunteer in a leadership position in our local congregation. I have the opportunity to help prepare weekly Sunday services, plan service projects and activities, and work with youth aged 11-18. It's extremely rewarding and keeps me grounded.
My day job is in deep tech working with machine learning and robotics at a startup, and the industry is constantly shifting with rapid advancements in the tech, unpredictable markets, plus the stress of being early stage, so it's incredibly refreshing to have part of my life be very stable and grounded, and provides me purpose and perspective on those things that matter most.
I host 3 weekly book clubs with various friend groups via Discord which is very rewarding and a great way to socialize! Highly recommend for any people who enjoy reading to give a book club a shot—not only does it deepen my relationships with friends, it provides a ton of different perspectives on motifs, themes, and moments in the story that resonate with others.
We've tended towards fantasy series, but have done some sci-fi and other works as well. Currently reading through Malazan: Book of the Fallen in one group (Near the end of Memories of Ice (book 3)) and Mother of Learning in another. The third group is currently on hiatus but we'll vote on the next series soon and resume next year.
I'm also very into music (both listening and playing). Recently restrung my 7-string guitar with heavier gauge strings and have been learning some new stuff in lower tunings than I'm used to (Drop F and Drop G#).
Haven't engaged seriously with it in some time, but I used to be really into Yoyo's, specifically 1a style throwing. Super rewarding hobby that can be fun for beginners to advanced throwers.
Finally, I really enjoy video games. Lately I've been into MMO's (WoW, FFXIV, OSRS, GW2+1, etc.) but love puzzle games, factory building games, and RPGs/ARPGs.
That's awesome, I want to read (part of?) Malazan in 2024, after having finally gotten around to reading Wheel of Time in 2022-23.
And I also have a collection of YoYos! Haven't learned too much relatively speaking, but I did love it when I focused on it and always want to get back into it.
The Wheel of Time is one that I'd like to read eventually too! Best of luck with Malazan! Our group has had a blast—definitely rewarding to read with a group if you can find others willing to commit because it's so dense that we're often able to theorize or point out parts that others overlooked!
Also love that you collect YoYo's too! My favorite is my OneDrop Markmont Classic. Smoothest and most balanced YoYo I've ever tried! Do you have a fave?
Yes, I've heard so much about Malazan. I basically got into fantasy more big time a couple of years ago, and decided to start going through the most popular series, and WoT was first up, being the probably most popular. (I was and am a huge Sanderson fan before this, that's one reason I decided to read more fantasy.)
YoYo's - actually my first YoYo was a OneDrop. I was collecting spinners at the time and they came out with a spinner, which is how I heard of them, then they came out with the Deep State YoYo, which sounded really cool as a "carry around everywhere" kind of thing. Of course it's not a very good YoYo for actually learning, it's thin and semi-responsive.
I haven't really played enough with any of my YoYos, but I think my favorite of the ones I have is the Boost Afterburner. It just looks amazing, and plays beautifully. But I've probably actually played the most with the Shutter and the Replay (plastic YoYo).
I haven't read Malazan but I've heard it's very hard to get into. I've seen trying to read the first book being likened to being dropped in a remote Chinese village with no manual or linguistic ability in Mandarin.
For your group to not only successfully complete the 1st book, but to also proceed till the 3rd book must have been a challenging feat.
Thanks! I think the difficulty can be a little overhyped sometimes, but it's definitely been a challenging read! More than anything, it often presents information with little context and leaves you to wonder for a while (sometimes books) before finally explaining things. The nice thing about reading it in a group is we can all share different insights and predictions for the things that are happening.
I think we're going to make it through the whole series because everyone is still very engaged with the books but only time will tell haha. Definitely a marathon of a series!
Honestly, probably not. It's not necessarily that I don't think someone who's primarily familiar with Sanderson/Rothfuss/etc wouldn't be __capable__ of reading it—it's more that the format of the story and narrative are so vastly different than the styles of more mainstream fantasy works that it's hard to say whether or not it would resonate with you.
Some readers of the series would recommend reading 1-3 books before making a judgement on it, but I think that it's just not for most people. If you'd like a challenge and enjoy the process of solving a big crazy puzzle, than I'd say go for it! But if you are more interested in reading something that you can just pick up and enjoy, there are better series out there.
If you're looking to try some stuff outside the Sanderson/Rothfuss bubble, some of my personal favorites are Mother of Learning by Domagoj Kurmaic and Cradle by Will Wight.
The former is a fantasy time loop story about a young academy student who becomes stuck in a month long time loop and has to figure out how to get out of it.
The latter is a underdog eastern fantasy story that's kind of like an anime in book form where quite possibly the weakest person in the world learns of an apocalyptic event that he needs to get strong enough to stop in order to save his loved ones.
Both are progression fantasy, a fun sub-genre that is more focused on the acquisition of power than a more traditional epic fantasy series like the authors you mentioned have, but could be a fun way to branch out and explore some other styles of fantasy writing!
We read a set amount of a book on a schedule (2-3 chapters usually) then discuss as a group our thoughts on parts of the story that stood out to us. Sometimes it's predictions for the future, sometimes it's specifics about characters and their relationships to others, sometimes it's a meta-discussion about themes and motifs present in the writing and how they relate to our experiences and lives, and sometimes it's just us sharing thoughts on parts we found to be awesome!
I find it helps to discuss these things with others because oftentimes I can miss certain parts of a story or interpret events in a way that others interpreted differently. Those types of things can lead to super interesting conversations that teach us more about ourselves and the world around us so it's a fun way to get introspective and learn by deepening relationships with others!
They're usually about 1 hour long conversations that are very free-form, so there's not really a right or wrong way to do it—if you want to give it a shot, just find some people with an interest in reading something together and meet up for discussions!
Good info, thanks. A person in a WhatsApp group I am in, but not known to me, started such a club recently, so I was interested to know what it was about.
Swing dancing is the most important hobby I have because it is the foundation of my social circle and helps me to build relationships with people outside of my immediate professional and economic circles.
It's also great to be able to go to pretty much any reasonably sized city, head to a dance and immediately start building a new social circle.
Besides this, I have been making live programming videos on YT for a while, but more recently I've started experimenting with using video as a medium for storytelling and highlighting things I appreciate in the various communities I am a part of.[1]
Pinball is my big one. I play competitively, in tournaments and a league, and have my own machines at home.
It's such a different dimension than any other kind of video game, with the size and physicality. As a WFHer since Covid, pinball is huge in giving me something to do that isn't sitting on my butt staring at a screen. It's not a cheap hobby, for sure, modern machines run around $6k and up, but then again they can be resold and traded for close to what you paid.
Money for the machine aside, don't they just take up a lot of space? I can't imagine having even one machine in my apartment, let alone multiple if it's a serious hobby.
One machine isn't all that big, the size of a large desk or small sofa. It's 2.5 feet wide by about 4.5 long, plus a couple feet of space for you to stand in. One machine would fit in all but the tiniest apartments (assuming you can get it up any stairs into there), although the big problem in an apartment is really noise bothering the neighbors.
I have an unused bedroom as my pinball room (in a spacious suburban house), which fits five machines side by side.
Most commonly people do it in a converted garage or full sized finished basement rec-room kind of setup, often big enough to fit 10 or 20 machines.
My hobbies change on a whim. The most consistent hobby I have is long distance running.
I do other things for a while until I get bored of it, and move on.
I say that my studying is a hobby too though. I have been to university 5 times, and everyone in my life gets mad at me for always studying (I have a job, so i'm not sure why anyone cares if I study) so for my defense, I always say "studying is my hobby". It probably is... I like being in pursuit of stuff and working towards something. I don't know what i'd do with myself if I wasn't working towards achieving something. Perhaps I just need to reframe what it is I want to achieve, but studying is comfortable.
I used to commute via the South Shore Railroad to Chicago, and had about 50 minutes each way with my laptop. Most days, I'd be processing photos. Some are aligned in a focal plane, some are aligned other ways. Here's an old gallery on Flickr.[2]
I got into this after seeing a demo of Marc Levoy's work at Stanford, where the demo showed a number of subjects in a virtual focal plane, then a subject behind a hedge, focused THROUGH the shrubbery.... which seemed like magic.[3,4] I didn't have the funds for a 128 camera array, but what I did have was time... so I improvised.
Stand in a spot, with your DSLR or smartphone.... look at a non-moving subject.... take a cluster of pictures within about a dinner plate size area
Then take all those photos, and using Hugin[1], align selected points in the scene that will be your virtual focal plane, across all the photo pairs
Use Hugin to transform all those images into the same virtual focal plane
Use a small python script to average the photos into a single image
If you like, you can chose different points to get a different focal plane from the same set of images.
The goal of a hobby is to have fun. If it's not fun, then stop doing it. Start doing something else. Dont think of it to same way you would a career.
So don't look at your ex-hobbies as failures, or things you didn't master, but rather as things you enjoyed for a season. They're not a marriage "in sickness and in health".
Yes, some are productive, some are not. But the-producing- should not be the point. The journey is all that matters.
Feel free to sell all the junk in your garage. Or better yet pass it on to someone who's interested themselves. That guitar I don't play anymore us someone's dream Christmas gift. And when they're done either it, they can pass it on too.
I think that depends. There is some wiggle room. Some hobbies require dedication to reach a new level of enjoyment. Making music or playing an instrument, for example. Enjoyment is directly correlated with capability, because you can more readily express what you're attempting to express. But sometimes, practice isn't fun. Being dedicated and spending the time are a bit of a grind. It's delayed gratification.
Wholeheartedly agree with your point about needing to enjoy the journey though, so it's best to find a way to enjoy the grind. Mixing it up. Applying your learning. Jamming with other people. etc..
Sure, practice can be practice - learning a new skill can be frustrating when my ambition is up here, and my ability is down there. But if I'm making _progress_ then I'm happy... There have to be some "wins" to keep me going :)
And there's a lot of truth that it _has_ to be hard in order to be _fun_. Easy things aren't really fun. At least not for very long...
hope its a bit of pun. if not, everyone makes mistakes. sometimes really big/grave/stupid/silly ones. its OK. its really OK. call it learning/lessons. a more positive way to see the same things.
Lately I've been trying to get away from anything involving a screen outside of work. At the moment I'm spending a lot of time cooking and working on basic repair projects around the house. Once it gets warmer, I'll transition to things like camping, gardening, and fishing. I've also wanted to get into bow hunting, but it's not popular in my area so I haven't found anyone to go with.
Photography, both analog and digital. I particularly enjoy the former as no computer is involved - I stare at one all day at work, thankyouverymuch.
Ham radio, in particular tinkering and construction - I am an RF engineer by education, but work outside the field - so the hobby is a good way to at least retain some skills.
Oh, and I do traditional textile dyes for my mother and a few handfuls of her fellow weaving artisans.
No, never quite got around to that, I'm afraid - has been on my to do-list for ages, but every time I sit down to do something about it, I glance over at my cameras and go out shooting another couple of rolls instead! (Mostly landscapes and the occasional portrait - I live in the proverbial middle of nowhere, so there's an awful lot of reasonably untouched nature right outside...)
(Gostei das suas fotos e sinto muita falta de estar em uma cidade de verdade, como você e seus amigos! (Eu trabalho no Brasil alguns meses por ano, então falo um pouco de Português!)
It gives me chance to get off computer (so only physical boardgames - no BGA) and meet new people (so no solo games). And since I like collecting stuff it also plays nicely into this quirk of mine (my collection just passed 140 mark).
The world of modern boardgames is really fascinating and totally different than I remember from childhood - playing boardgames in early 90s in Poland was geeks territory (up there with math and computers) and nowadays its almost badge of honor and all the coolest people will happily play boardgames (just to be clear I do not claim people playing games in 90s were geeks, it was just the prevailing opinion of my peers)
Skiing - I live in a cold climate. there's 4 months were it's dark before I quit work. If I don't do stuff outdoors in the sunlight, I go crazy
Woodworking - My first in between high school and college was at a fine furniture shop. We built 18th and 19th century reproductions. I spent years without a shop not doing much with this but just this fall finally got my own shop space setup and just finished my first project.
Mountain biking - like skiing but for the summer
The gym - If I can't get outside, at least I can move my body a bit
Electronics - My dad showed me how to solder when I was very young. He had some electronics kits that I would experiment with. I know have a very basic setup and am working on some cool personal projects. I'd like to combine woodworking and electronics on a future project.
Hiking - used to do this a lot more. biking and skiing have taken most of my outdoor time recently
Hobby operating system development and dabbling in embedded / low level programming. Right now I am aiding an effort to port a DOS clone into RISC-V and ARM, we have to make 16 bit apps run on the 32 bit mode of a 64 bit ARM processor, it's a lot of fun.
Since there is no question, I guess the OP wants to find some inspiration? Anyway here goes:
- gaming. Since I was a child, I've been gaming. I don't consider it as a "productive" hobby, but it's one nevertheless. It's almost an addiction, so I try to not have all my free time filled by that.
- wrenching on cars. That's my current main hobby. I've bought my first car (I didn't own one before) specifically to have one I could go as far as I'd want without the responsibility of breaking someone else's car. Though I do minor repairs/maintenance for friends and family. On my own car, the most complicated/time-consuming jobs I did so far was a suspension overhaul (including rebuilding struts towers with new shocks) and changing the gearbox.
- track days. It's an aspiring hobby. I can't currently own a track car (parking spots are too expensive where I live), so instead I do the next best thing: paying for "track experiences" and doing a few laps on track-ready cars. I've done 2 so far, planning a 3rd, and really want to own a track car at some point.
The other hobbies are past hobbies I've wound down because I'm not that interested in that anymore:
- cocktail mixing. I have a full-size bar at my home (that could be put regular bars to shame) so I can mix anything I want. I used to be more socially active and try new cocktails every week but now I only do one every few months, generally from my list.
- bartending. I used to do bartending in a non-profit bar for a few hours each week.
- electronics. A friend got me into it, I dabbled with Arduinos, Raspberry Pi and have lots of parts that got gifted by that friend. Nowadays, I use those skills for appliances repairs and car repairs.
- woodworking. This was very short, as I do not enjoy it that much, just don't have lots of needs nor the space to do that, but a lot of my furniture is home-made, out of pallets I found on the streets (I got help from a more experienced friend luckily). That includes the aforementioned bar and sizeable wood chests to store the electronics and miscellaneous tools.
Building motorized Bikes.
I'm well versed in bike ridding and maintanance, and in 2020 I started mounting 2-stroke engines on them. It's nice hobbie to learn about internal combustion engines, because it is very cheap and very diy. The community is nice (they still use those subject spefic old forums).I don't have to care too much about registrations and rules.
I use the bikes I build to go where I'm too lazy to pedal.
I asked myself that question at the start of the year and the answer was: I have none! I realised that I was rapidly approaching retirement age and I had nothing to do when I stop software stuff!
So I've changed all that and tried a few things. I've settled on golf (used to play as a child - I'm 49 now) and playing piano (played that as a child too).
Anyway... I'm happy af now (only way to put it).
Not to sidetrack this but I reckon unfinished stuff is a definite cause of mid-life crisis: I realised that I start many things but don't finish them and often use the excuse, "meh, it wasn't for me!" to justify it and funnily enough, from the middle of last year to this year I was decidedly unhappy but couldn't put my finger on it. Since I picked up the piano and golf again (both things I quit at before), I've never been happier.
I don't think that's a sidetrack at all. It's unfortunate that the midlife crisis (particularly for men) has been so thoroughly ridiculed by the intellectual classes and the entertainment industry.
It's natural and, I would say, healthy to become more reflective when you come to realize that you've lived more years already than you're going to live in the future.
And having some activities that give meaning and joy to someone just in and of themselves is an important part of living well. Like you, I've found myself bothered by hobbies I put down years before out of a feeling that I wasn't good enough, didn't have the time, etc. Good on you for getting back to both golf and piano!
Love it! Have you ever tried Modded Minecraft? Huge fan of the same types of games, and nothing except factorio hits quite as hard as expert packs in Minecraft for me.
Enigmatica 2: Expert Extended, Nomifactory (GTCEu Port), and Gregtech: New Horizons are some of the most engaging factory building games I've ever had the pleasure of playing! Highly recommend giving it a shot if you like that style of puzzle solving :)
PS2 is still going? That is dangerous news lol, I spent way too much time playing it and had a blast. It was (and maybe still is) popular, but I’ve always felt it was underrated for what it was. No other game has given me the wild one-off experiences you get when you hop on when it’s just slammed.
I work on old motorcycles and cars. I do photography both digital and analog. Then I lift weights and finally I read a lot which also leads to me writing a bit about the interests that I have.
The ones I participate in currently:
Off-road truck building (mostly rock crawling),
Metal fabrication (welding, tube bending, etc),
Weightlifting,
Surfing,
Built a pond in the backyard with bluegill and leopard frog.
Please do. It's a skill for life and a great equalizer, quite literally, once people have installed the foils on the boards there is quite literally nothing left to invent in the sport/hobby.
It's like biking, people can trim a quarter of an ounce from the bike/board here and there but the body movements and techniques that you learn now will be absolutely the same 100 years from now.
Music (guitar, mandolin, synths), photography (film and digital), cycling, running, gardening, archaeology, cooking, church bell ringing. I'm retired so I have plenty of time for hobbies.
Anything up to 30ish miles is comfortable to me. But I’ll only do that on trails or particularly scenic roads (both of which I have available on foot from my apartment). And I limit myself to one or two outings like that per quarter. Other than that it’s mostly 3-10 miles per run depending on what I feel like doing.
I’ve been running for 15ish years and probably take a full week off a year if I’m feeling anything uncomfortable that affects my stride. Other than that I try to average 20-40 miles a week depending on the time of year and how I’m feeling overall.
The things I think I do differently from most runners are:
1. My #1 goal is to be running in 30 years. So I’ll sacrifice distance and speed today for that goal.
2. I care about speed very little. I enjoy being outside and moving so probably 1% of my mileage is at a high intensity.
music (guitar / electronic), reading (scifi), walking in nature / traveling, programming, anthropology/history, gaming. gotta keep my mind busy. most are on and off. nothing serious, seriousness is for work :).
I love going to my local YMCA because I enjoy seeing the regulars every day and they have everything I need - dumbells, isolation machines, benches and squat racks.
Specifically: Collecting Hobbies.
I find that following my ADHD hyperfocus until the next shiny thing comes along has led to a massively diverse array of introductory knowledge and mediocre skills (as well as a garage stuffed full with bins of unfinished projects). Specifically in the last two years I have dabbled in:
I realized years ago that I had to embrace the change and I try to dip my toe into any hobby that appeals at the time with as minimal monetary outlay as possible. I find interests tend to resurface after a while, and the skills/tools/materials for one can generally be used somewhere else down the road.I have found that I learn something and increase my skillset with every unfinished project. That leads to, over the long run, being able to get more accomplished in less time on newer projects. The real treasures are the friends you made ^h^h^h^h^h things you learned along the way.