What is something like a hobby or skill that you belive almost anybody should give a try, and what makes your suggestion so good compared to other things?
i feel like this is a descent question i guess.
Self-hosting. You learn how to use Linux, security, managing services, and after all that you have your own little ship on the internet. After all that you gain a massive understanding of how the internet and the technology you use daily work and run (to an extent).
3D printing. Suddenly you are able to fix small plastic shit in your house which would otherwise mean throwing out the whole goddamn thing. Best feeling ever to repair and save stuff.
i wish i could 3d print board games and such but printers are so pricey.
Biking.
Moving under your own power has so many benefits:
- It’s fun
- It’s cheap (or can be, to be fair)
- It’s good for your health
- It’s good for the planet
I started cycling to commute about a year ago and it’s been such a wonderful thing for my mental and physical health, not to mention my bank account. Beware that you may get sucked down the Not Just Bikes rabbit hole if you’re not careful and end up becoming a walkable/bikable cities advocate as I have.
It’s fun
My knees disagree but each to their own ;)
I cringe watching someone struggling to turn the pedals when they are riding a multi geared bike.
Cycling is good for the knees, if you’re not staining to turn the pedals. That’s why gearing exists.
Use the gears to make the pedaling easier.
Also to add, the seat height should be adjusted such that your leg is just under full extension when on the pedal at its lowest point. Otherwise you are wasting a ton of power with every stroke, and will feel it in your knees much quicker.
Thinking of learning sign language…
that would be useful.
I tried sign language on a whim in college and ended up loving it! It’s really unique and fun to use. It ended up being my secondary focus on my degree. Also, Deaf people are always super happy whenever there is someone to speak with, even if you stumble through it they are always patient and try to help
how long did it take you to learn it?
I studied it for about 4 years doing a mix of learning and being a teaching assistant for the intro classes, but realistically I was conversational after 2 classes or about a year.
Some tips if you want to learn. I learned American Sign so your mileage may vary for others:
-Find out what sign language is primarily used in your country ASL (American Sign Language) in the US, BSL (British Sign Language) in England, I think some parts of Canada use FSL (French Sign Language) but I cant remember. Universal Sign exists, but is never used so dont learn that.
-Use your dominant hand for all single handed signs
-Learn the alphabet, there are not signs for every word that exists. Often times words are spelled out (fingerspelled) instead of having signs. So by learning your alphabet you can always default to spelling things out if you dont know the sign.
-Facial expressions are super important. They feel really weird at first and often times are what beginners struggle with the most, but they are used to show tone in the conversation and without them you are missing a large building block of the language.
-I found the best way to practice was to sign to myself instead of talking to myself. It helped me remember the main signs that I would use in conversation and helped me practice my finger spelling.
If anyone has any questions, feel free to reach out. Im still very passionate about the language and culture.
Crochet
Pros
- Documented mental health benefits
- Cheap to start, can learn from online tutorials
- Easier than knitting
- Make cool toys, clothes, home accessories, whatever you want
- Get to smush yarn into your face on a regular basis
Cons
- Fibre crafts gateway drug
I love the smushing! Find it so hard to learn though
Sounds like you have the most important part of the hobby down already, at least!
(see my reply to the other comment for various maybe-helpful links)
Any online tutorial that could help me get started you recommend?
Well, I don’t want to be That Person but technically I made a (long) video for total crochet beginners that I know quite a few people have used to great success. It’s frontloaded with theory though and more for people like me who learn by understanding the “why” of what they’re doing.
If you prefer to do it in shorter chunks or without all the tedious theory, which let’s face it most people do, I’ve heard really good things about this Bella Coco series which has, um, slightly more views than mine 😅
There’s a fairly new (aren’t they all) crochet community over at [email protected] (direct link) that seems very nice so far, I’m sure they’d love to help with your first attempts too!
I like crochet, even though I’m really bad at it. It’s very peaceful (unless I’m counting stitches, then it’s a constant fight against my ADHD), and I have a bunch of cool scarves now.
I think that’s part of why I suggested it over knitting, you can do the complex projects with the counting and the actual effort OR you can just mindlessly crochet a long scarf or a bunch of cotton washclothes and end up with something practical.
Knitting is a lot slower and also less suitable for some of those small projects like washcloths so unless it’s basic garter stitch you pretty much know you’re gonna have to concentrate at least a little bit.
My girlfriend does both, and it’s definitely amazing how much faster crochet is! Like, “oh, here’s a giant amigurumi dragon I whipped up in a week,” or “here’s a poncho made over the weekend for our vacation,” with crochet, versus “I have to frog 4 weeks of work because I slipped a stitch and didn’t notice.” Granted, she’s much better at crochet (by her admission), but knitting seems tough. Love the stuff you can make with it though.
Haha, yep that sounds about right! I do love being able to do both, some things you can do with knitting you just can’t do in crochet especially if you need to create a nice drapey fabric. Being bistitchual is the best of both worlds!
- making bread
- brewing beer (or making wine or cider, as one prefers)
- repair sewing
I suspect I’d feel the same about welding or smithing, but I haven’t tried those (yet).
Two things: chess and piano. I downloaded the chess.com app and play whenever I’m idling for more than a few minutes. Got to a very proficient respectable level in a few months, and it’s a ton of fun, endless combinations, no upper limit to how good you can get.
I also bought a cheap keyboard for under $300 and got proficient at it within a few months. Half hour here, twenty minutes there, an hour there. I’m not Chopin or anything and I can barely even play him but again, respectable.
So now if you ever go somewhere and see a chess set or a piano you can be like hey I know what to do with that!
Chess is such a great game that really makes you think critically about your thinking, I enjoy playing it anytime I am feeling brain fog from antidepressants as it keeps me in the real world.
Brain fog is real, definitely not talked about enough! One of the worst things to come out of being depressed and then being on SSRIs is that I struggle to read these days. I love reading but I don’t have much brainpower left to take things in anymore
One lesson I’ve taken away from it is that playing good chess is much less about coming up with astonishing brilliant moves than I thought. It’s more about making good decisions, positioning yourself well, and continuously applying pressure. If you keep doing that you will have good results most of the time. Great life lesson, hit me in the face like a ton of metaphors when I realized that.
Absolutely. I’d argue it’s one of the best games to teach kids, siblings, etc.
I plan on teaching my nephew when he turns 10 as a way to help him think about things critically in which he can apply to the real world.
You should! My grandfather figure taught me how to play chess, I look back on the time we spent together fondly
Sewing is useful and satisfying. I’d like to say it’s also easy but I have never figured it out myself (which doesn’t say much, anything that involves using my hands is… questionable)
Cooking! It can be so rewarding, a fun way to impress or care for others, and you need to eat every day anyway so ample time to practice.
Almost all cooking can be done with practically no hardware beyond a sharp knife, a good sized cutting board, and a good pot or pan.
There’s so many patterns and combinations and different takes on the same ingredients that you can learn. The basics get you 80% of the way there
Skill wise, though I believe this would apply to many here already, analyzing and critical thinking in regard to use of technology.
For instance, checking which apps and extensions you use on your devices and see if you need them. Likewise, look thoroughly when trying or testing software to prevent you from being part of a malicious extension campaign. Check which apps are connected to your SSO (single sign on) accounts like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, etc.; doing this regularly especially if you’re one to try new apps and software, ensures that once you no longer use them, they can’t keep getting your data.
Critical thinking in regard to questioning if a company, person, or app is social engineering you in attempt for money or control your choices. Think Facebook with when you’re deleting an account, it’s showing the profile pics of people you talk to most and telling you “these friends will miss you” in an attempt to guilt-trip you not to using it. Same thing with software like VPNs or any security software telling you that you’re not safe without their software or a service trying to get you back by emailing you saying they miss you and trying to sway you to spend more money with coupons, marketing emails, etc.
Indoor gardening/hydroponics. Even in the smallest flat you can grow your own salad, peppers, radish, tomatoes, microgreens, etc.
Like a tiny stardew valley at home.
An instrument. It’s soul food and extremely therapeutic. Even if you suck, just learn to let it go. I find it’s really good for my mental health. I dunno, it’s music ya know? Lol
I’m really grateful my parents pushed me to start playing the violin at 5, because it massively enriched my life. Even when I was bullied, abused, and miserable, playing my violin would help pick me up just a bit.
I agree, singing does that for me as well. Could be having a shit day but after choir things always seem a bit better
Baking - fresh warm bread is so good!
Sewing - it’s nice to add pockets to things 😁
Oh my god yes the lack of pockets! Changed my life when I learned to sew.
Cooking. So many people don’t even have the bare minimum ability to throw something together from raw ingredients that’s vaguely nutritious, palatable, and won’t give anyone food poisoning, so of course start there - it’s so much cheaper than ready meals and there are plenty of recipes that are fast if time constraints are why you use ready meals. In fact, a trick I’ve always used is to cook something that serves 4-6 people, divide the extra into tubs, and freeze it. That’s a few nights where making dinner is as quick and simple as defrosting something, maybe boiling some rice or pasta to go with. Do this with a half-dozen meals and you can alternate and not have to cook for weeks.
Beyond that though, learning a little more about flavour and technique, how to season a dish like a pro, some more unusual flavour combinations etc. can add real interest to your diet for very little extra effort, time, or cost. A few cheap herbs and spices can cost less than a single portion of what you’re cooking and give you enough to enhance months worth of meals.
Cooking yourself a treat is great therapy. Cooking something a bit fancy for someone makes for a cheap yet heartfelt date night. Cooking a meal your family enjoys is really satisfying. Everyone should learn to cook, just a little.
Learning a new language. You learn a bit about how languages work, understand other cultures a bit better, usually learn new vocabulary for your native language, understand the relationship between different languages, learn the roots of loan words and generally helps your brain stay healthy, even by only studying the basics.
what lauguage would you recommend for people who only know english?
Not OP, but I’ve asked myself this as well. I think it depends on where you live and what you want out of your language learning experience. If your goal is to learn something more useful in everyday life and you live in the southern US, Spanish is a great option. If you’re from Canada, French is probably the most useful. German and Mandarin are useful in the business world, but the latter is significantly harder to learn. If you’re not worried about maximizing the utility of what you learn, Norwegian is considered one of the easiest languages for English speakers, and let’s be real, Norway is awesome.
It’s more important that you stick with whatever you choose though. That’s the part I’ve struggled with.
To be honest I’m not a native English speaker so your advice is probably more useful anyway. My husband is British and has studied plenty of languages, finding Swedish and Norwegian definitely the easiest to pick up. Romance languages have more complicated grammar but you’ll find a lot more TV and movies to watch to casually pick up a bit more of the language, which I find useful because I only speak English as well as I do from watching a lot of TV (first with subs) when I was younger.
do you have any swedish tv shows or movies you could recommend? the more the merrier please, or any resources for it at all?
Esperanto is reckoned an easy pickup, has speakers globally, and will improve your default in most romance languages. The community is also quite nice, in my experience.
