no hobbies. sad.
nothing expensive, or with an unreasonable learing curve. something easy to start doing that requires little setup so i can pick it up anytime i want
you guys got any ideas?
Inexpensive, and little setup, with no steep learning curve?
Off the top of my head:
- singing
- drawing
- playing a tin whistle
- dorodango
- dexterity games (card flourishes, astrojax, yoyo, pen spinning, etc.)
- reading
- kumihimo
- customising things with paint markers
- yoga
- whetstoning
- writing (prose or poetry)
- journaling/journalism
- cross stitch/embroidery
- jelqing
- rock/object balancing
- meditation
- knife throwing
- macramé (using beading floss)
- playing the spoons
- whittling
- eating
- scrimshaw
- nålbinding
- henna tattooing
- primping
- cloudgazing
- looking at fucking everything through a high mag loupe
- tarot divination
- contact juggling
- kefir making
- key duplication by hand
- sleeping
- hiking
- floccinaucinihilipilification
- origami
- talking to nearby friendly looking strangers
- polishing
- cleaning
- caligraphy
- drugless hallucination
- soapbox public speaking
- zen gardening
- guerilla gardening
- pitch ear training
- ‘easter egg’ hiding
- local botanical/ecological studies
- flint knapping
- home/interior design (as long as you don’t actually buy anything)
- knolling
- marble running
- solo RPGs like ‘Alone Among The Stars’ (okay this one wasn’t technically off the top of my head. I couldn’t remember the name, so I looked it up.)
triple upvotp 👍 👍
That’s very little to go on, so my suggestively is reading.
Very cheap to get into as well as something that’s is easy to pickup and let rest. Plenty of free options around too.Explore your neighborhood
- geocaching
- contributing to open street maps (Street complete)
- photography with your cell phone
I almost commented earlier and suggested Street Complete myself, on the grounds that if someone is sad, which OP said he was, getting outside and getting exercise can be helpful.
There are exactly zero boring hobbies, through the right eyes or right lens.
boring as you use it, is a term which works best when describing a person. Take from that what you will.
Well you could start drilling a hole down into the earth for fun. That would be a boring hobby…
It would not be boring in any sense of the word when you got close to magma. :-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremes_on_Earth#Lowest_artificial_points
It’s boring time, OP
Electric drum kit is fun, cathartic, and quiet outside your headphones. Chilis are easy to grow, and they certainly entertain the mouth. Running saved my life. Tennis balls from the machine launcher. Rock wall. Skateboard. People love pickleball, but you need friends. Darts. 3D printer. Electric piano. Cooking class you can meet a girl, cook for her, get back rubs. Singing lessons. Fetish exploration. You got this.
Ooh would you have some recommendations or pointers on what to to look at for electric drum kits?
I’ve always wanted to learn drumming but never got around to it
Zero cost:
- Running
- Yoga
- Bodyweight exercise
Zero cost if you have a library card:
- Reading (fiction)
- Reading (non-fiction)
- Online discussion
Price of pencil and paper:
- Writing (creative)
- Writing (journaling)
- Drawing
Fairly cheap:
- Music (playing)
- Music (listening)
- Painting
Having fun isn’t hard if you have a library card
While you’re against boring, have you considered whittling?
Seconded. All you need is a knife, a block of wood and a box of Band-Aids (sticking plasters, or whatever your colloquial term is for small wound dressings).
Origami. Very cheap to begin with, still cheap when you’re deep into it. Unless you got so deep that you’re travelling the world to go to conventions but that’s another story, the biggest expense is buying books once you decide to have them physically.
Don’t use printer paper, kraft paper is cheap and works perfectly. Only down side is having to cut it.
Geocaching
heard about it and saw some things about it online. still not sure what it is but at least its outside activty (i think)
Almost always outside.
To me, it frequently gives me reasons to go explore lots of new places/parks/etc. And I treat it as “hiking with a goal” (although definitely not everyone does it that way). And I’ve found a lot of really interesting/cool geocaches that way.
Also will do with my wife, family, friends, or solo. And have made friends that way. There’s ever regular meetups all over for the hobby.
There tend to be a lot of geocaches hidden in places like parking lots and things to but I have less than zero interest in that. It has to be somewhere that I would enjoy going to in the first place.
One was hidden in a book in a public library once (with the blessing of the library), which was pretty cool. Another I had to open a lock after solving a puzzle. Another was in a tree and you had to do something special to lower it down (which was super cool). Most I go to are just hidden in a nice place, though.
Meditation ( Creative Commons guided meditations )
Hiking ( some old OSM hiking trail maps )
Boardgames and cardgames ( Spiel de Jahres - awards 1979-2026 ) - Game of the year list, any winners or nominated games are excellent
Cycling: Get a bicycle and start exploring your area. It doesn’t need to be a nice bike; check garage sales and Craigslist and get whatever fits comfortably. Wander off your usual routes and you will encounter new corners of your town that you never knew existed.
Music: Pick up a used acoustic guitar, electric keyboard, banjo, or whatever you can find. The world is full of inexpensive books and free YouTube videos to teach new students.
Drawing: Make doodles, little comics, or sketches of whatever is around you. A pencil and paper are all you need. Look up YouTube videos for daily sketching practice exercises.
Amateur radio: An entry-level license involves a basic quiz and a nominal fee. Cheap radios can be had for less than US$100. If you meet an old timer with a garage full of gear they might hand you a pile of old equipment for free.
Of course, any of these can become expensive and time-consuming hobbies if you go down the rabbit hole. But that just means you have found something you love.
Painting. Can be done for relatively cheap and scales up to a lot.
Birdwatching. If you have a smartphone you can get the merlin app and start from there. Collect 'em all like pokemon.
Photography. Really helps you see everything with a new perspective. Learn natural scapes, urban scapes. Interesting people. Flowers, Social activism documenting homeless, or cool or interesting people if you live in an urban freakshow. You can make the ordinary extraordinary.
Photography can get hella expensive though, even when you stick to the used market. That said, most phones nowadays can take HDR photos so they also serve as a starting point.
You can do amazing work with a smartphone. It can be hella expensive. It doesn’t have to be. Most of the best photography in history was done with total shit compared to what’s available now.
I just want to point out that any hobby you engage in for entertainment without it feeling like a chore is by definition not boring (to you). Personally I couldn’t see myself in a situation where I’d be collecting stamps, because I would probably find it very boring. But others enjoy it, so it’s a valid un-boring hobby, just not for me.
Reading. You got a library near you? Great, you’re set. You don’t have a library near you? E-books.
Everyone has a library card at Anna’s Archive
May I suggest simple crafting, like whittling, ancient/native pottery, wood carving, paper basket weaving, origami, crochet (or the slightly more addictive and expensive knitting), braiding, weaving, macrame, yarn spinning, decorative knotworking, flower pressing, dyemaking, hand dying, flower arrangement, make walking canes, etc?
Or maybe an instrument? Someone mentioned guitar, but why not harmonica, ukulele, bongos, simple percussives, or why not take up singing, there’s typically a choir almost everywhere, or you could try solo, or whistling, or yodeling.
Or maybe take up gardening/growing? In pots, hydroponically, maybe on a growing lot, or someone’s yard?
Or take up community projects, like either sanctioned or guerilla gardening, greening, forestry, litter picking, maintaining communal spaces, volunteer, start a community project (pollination diversity, bee keeping, growing lots, food drive, food forestry)
Or take up a cause? Build community, take affirmative action, demonstrate, protest, coordinate, communicate, with an established org, or on your own?
Maybe the outdoors could entice? Take up walking, ornithology, watch bats, discover new insects, take up chabana/ikebana, learn to forage, learn survival skills, go hiking, stack rocks, track animals, learn trapping, get into scouting, make bark boats, learn to skip rocks, climb trees, jump in puddles, pretend (or practice) animistic rituals, feel rain on naked skin, sleep under a bare sky, pick skulls, horns and bones to craft with.
Perhaps create stories, tell stories, write poetry, learn magic, juggle, poi, take up clowning, go swing/country/folk/traditional/ballroom/social dancing, try Butoh, write sketches, join a theatre, start a business, take up decorating, or just embrace whimsy?
I can also warmly recommend trying a new thing every week/month/period and see what sticks and not.
