Everything that takes the mind off of all the stress of contemporary life.
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.
Painting. You can get a decent brush set, as many colors of acrylic paint as you need to make just about any color you’d want, and a few canvases for around $40.
Going for a walk is an essential activity for me to reset. Riding my bike has a similar effect. I’ve started leaving my phone at home.
Reading as well. Something light-hearted if I’m seeking joy.
I have a small garden on my balcony. It’s not successful right now but it’s enjoyable to watch something green grow.
What about playing FTL? :)
I’m with you on everything except gardening. It sounds appealing in the abstract, but then in the spring it turns into “ugh, too much to do” and “ugh, gotta get up early to water” in the summer.
Actually…what DID get you into gardening in the first place? Maybe there’s something to it that I’m missing.
Sex
This guy fucks
Good one, fellow adult. I too have had the sex. Many. 150%
Riding my escooter through the local parks.
Pottery or papier-mâché. Or any other sort of creative type stuff. Also, digging holes. Wizardry and such. There’s so much to do, really.
Gardening, walking in forests :)
Litter picking is also a very in-the-moment activity, like an IRL hidden object game.
I’d also say that I read a lot, but I do it on an ebook reader, so it doesn’t feel properly offline 😅
I love forests, especially when the terrain is rugged enough to straddle the line between hiking and freeclimbing.
For books, I like the feel of turning the pages by hand, but I won’t begrudge anyone their e-reader!
Litter picking is a great suggestion.
Litter picking seems like a blast. Dry litter is just fun to clean up.
Outdoor back-to-basics stuff has only proven more beneficial the more I have integrated it into my life.
Carpentry, landscaping, gardening, and taking care of my many animals all help me get fresh air and exercise in addition to whatever else I get out of the activities.
I am living the superposition of that meme where the resume or linkedin profile goes from Senior Systems Architect to Goose Farmer. My day job is software for embedded systems. At home, in addition to the indoor projects I am slowly transforming my little fenced-in back yard into a combination of oasis, hobby farm, and town from an old RPG or zelda game.
Music. I have a degree in Music History, but I haven’t made a living with it for 25 years, although I still loved music.
During COVID, I was bored, and eating, so I took up guitar again, after leaving it behind decades ago. I’ve played every day since, and not only reached an intermediate level (far better than I ever was in the past), but I’ve also lost 100 pounds, by picking up my guitar instead of going to the fridge.
Now I’m experimenting with recording, using cheap used gear, and having a blast.
Playing on a PSP, those portable systems are still awesome.
Baking Sour Dough Bread
I play guitar, read, and do a bit of yardwork.
Learning how to fix the old pile of boards I live in, now that I’m retired. The biggest thing I learned so far is how much you can get done with vey little when you don’t have to pay for someone else’s time/labour.
Beer. Genuinely. Drinks with friends (not daily or problematical) is, in my opinion, the absolute spice of life. It’s not for everyone and the downsides are well documented and undeniable, but it’s always worked for me.
Cycling
Writing
Building stuff in Minecraft
Gym
