💾 Archived View for bbs.geminispace.org › u › Morgan › 12447 captured on 2023-12-28 at 17:04:37. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Re: "I've been thinking about hobbies lately"
I like juggling and contact juggling. Contact juggling is a bit more like knitting, in that you can do it without really watching and so it works e.g. while watching TV...
Learning a language is something you can practice on the phone whenever you have a few minutes to spare.
Hmmmm that's all I got :)
Dec 08 · 3 weeks ago
🐰 bubstance · Dec 08 at 18:44:
@Morgan, that's an excellent hand-eye coordination exercise as well. I definitely have to concentrate in order to juggle and thus far haven't been able to do it for very long.
How many objects can you juggle simultaneously?
🦉 ResetReboot · Dec 08 at 19:55:
Well, music as a hobby or pass time can be done pretty cheap. For example, a cheap guitar or ukelele and there's a ton of free resources to learn how to play and songs. The only expense is strings, and they can last a few months. Don't get fooled into buying very expensive guitars or uke's: That's for proffesionals and people earning a living.. or for bragging. This is a hobby after all!
The ukelele is specially portable and you can even bring it to parties and travels.
@bubstance I've been juggling for over 25 years, maybe 12 of those I spent quite a lot of time on it ... I can juggle five balls pretty well, six a bit l; I did try hard at five clubs once but never got beyond 10-20 throws, not enough to really feel like I could do it.
Good times.
It's also a nice social activity if you can find a juggling club, I went regularly at Uni, when I worked in London, and later I started a small group at work.
Contact juggling is less good as a social activity because it's much rarer :)
i am in love with analog photography. but i am afraid photography is an expensive hobby. though this exactly can make you slow down, think more before pressing a shutter button. also some gear is big (not what you want) and forces you to prepare for some time before making a photo.
then you can develop and even print photos in a darkroom in analog way. some european city libraries are equipped with everything, but if your city doesn't have such a library, then again - expenses.
other thing which comes to my mind is knitting or crocheting.
I don't do it, but, writing short stories...with a fountain pen.
I used to skateboard a lot as a kid and I've started relearning it recently. It's been a lot fun. Little bit of a cost up-front to get a board, but after that you won't need to spend any money for a while (until one of the parts break, but they all tend to last a while). And you can do it anywhere that there's flat ground.
You could also take up rubik's cubes. you can practice them anywhere.
@ResetReboot also worth mentioning that you can do music as a hobby for even cheaper if you focus on electronic music. Grab a free DAW, synth vst, and sample pack and you're ready to start.
kalimba, stylophone, hand drums and lyres can also be very cheap and portable. You'd be limited to using them in places where it's okay for you to be making noise, but if that's a concern, a sequencer or drum machine or groovebox or similar with a headphone jack would be something you can use anywhere.
You could look into Solo RPGs. Other than a few dice or a deck of cards theres not too much initial outlay.
🦉 ResetReboot · Dec 09 at 20:04:
@wasolili I mean, yeah, if you use GNU/Linux you get a ton of free things. But I guess the idea is to have a hobby away from the screen of the computer, so that's why the guitar and ukelele, no plugs, just your hands and your ability.
But following the synthesizer idea, the Korg Volcas are small and portable, so that's something to look into.
wasolili mentioned skateboarding and i thought, if the hobby is afk, why not it also make good for health. so bicycle is certainly good for everything and if you can make cycling a hobby that can be win-win.
🐉 gyaradong · Dec 11 at 07:26:
Draw. you just need a nice pen and nice paper or whatever medium you want to work in. Mostly it's not expensive.
I think cheap and free hobbies didn't really go away, they just got drowned out and neglected with the commercialization of everything. I like this thread of cheap hobby suggestions. I'll throw some out there. Geocaching, card/board games, walking/hiking. Another hobby I was really into the past that wasn't free but became free over time, fixing up old bicycles. There was some initial costs buying tools and then buying old bikes that needed fixing. But eventually I was selling them for more than I was putting into them so I was breaking even and enjoying myself.
I've been thinking about hobbies lately — It's important for humans to have a specific "thing" that they can do to relax and unwind, but many modern hobbies seem to involve spending large sums of money in perpetuity or are electronic in nature. I've been trying to think of something slow and relaxing—a craft, really—to start practicing. Ideally it would be cheap, but it should also be something that could be done almost anywhere without the need to carry around large amounts of extra gear or...