Hmmm. Hard to say exactly which is my favorite: in some cases it's hard to even tease apart what is "just" a hobby and what is a hobby that I'm interested in for other reasons.
But no matter how you slice it, two of my top hobbies are definitely fishing (mostly freshwater fishing, mostly for bass) and bike riding (mostly MTB, some road, some BMX). Both are hobbies I took up when I was very young and have been with me for basically my entire life.
There are "tech" things that could also be considered hobbies, like messing around with discrete electronics, working with Arduino's and other microcontroller platforms, goofing around with Raspberry Pi, etc. But to some extent I have interest in those things simply for their own sake, but also for a career / financial / commercial sake. That is, I have ideas about building things to sell, or at least to learn things that will advance my ability to build other things to sell, etc. So "hobby" I guess, but not "pure hobby" if that makes sense.
How did these things start?
Well...
Fishing - my dad took me fishing as a kid. Both freshwater and saltwater. The bug didn't necessarily "bite" right away, but by the time I was around 11 or 12 I fell into a habit of going fishing a lot with an older friend from school who lived down the road from me, and I just slowly got more and more into it. I had a few pauses or gaps here and there where I didn't fish much, but the pull was always there even when I left other things take precedence and keep me away from the water. I got back into fishing really often in 2019 and have fished relatively regularly since.
Bike Riding - my parents bought me a bike when I was pretty young. 8? 9? I don't really remember. I didn't like it and never rode at all really. A few years later I met a friend who was into BMX riding (same friend from the fishing story, BTW) and begged my parents for a BMX bike. They didn't want to buy me one at first since I never rode the earlier bike, but somehow, by hook or by crook, I managed to convince them to buy me one. I started doing dirt jumps and some flatland freestyle stuff and was hooked. Riding Mountain Bikes came years later when I was in my late 20's or early 30's. A few years after that I bought a road, nominally for "cross training" to support my MTB hobby. But over the last couple of years I've started to see roading biking as something I do for its own sake as well.
Electronics - I was just always into taking stuff apart and tinkering with innards from a young age. Electronics and electricity always fascinated me. I found a good "basic electronics" book in the library at my high-school when I got to that age, and started actually studying some of the theory. For quite a while I thought I would major in electrical engineering in college... different factors led me to major in computer science instead, but I always kept that interest in electronics.
I mean, I'm also a poor lost soul here, but HG Wells was right:
The passion for playing chess is one of the most unaccountable in the world. It slaps the theory of natural selection in the face. It is the most absorbing of occupations. The least satisfying of desires. A nameless excrescence upon life. It annihilates a man. You have, let us say, a promising politician, a rising artist that you wish to destroy. Dagger or bomb are archaic and unreliable - but teach him, inoculate him with chess.
I got a bicycle at age 6 and a minibike at age 11 and have ridden bikes and cycles ever since, mostly on-road but I'd love to do more off. I only wish it was safer to share the road. Most drivers act like running down a cyclist is their god-given right.
This, I got hit by a car on my lunch break two weeks ago. I've been riding for 30 years + now and this is the first time that's happened, but all it takes is once. MTB is fun, but injuries are more frequent. Motorcycles and racetracks are really fun, but they have their own risks. 2 wheels is magical though.
Pigeon keeping, well, I use to keep them as a kid. Found an injured wood pigeon, broken wing, an old woman next door had a few lofts at her farm that use to belong to her husband - I was allowed to keep it there and managed to splint the wing, after it healed I let it back into the wild. An avid pigeon racer who use to visit her noticed my interest and gave me my first racing pigeons. I started racing them, earned some okay results for a kid my age. Switched to my focus to fancy pigeons later on, mainly tumbler breeds. I stopped keeping them when I moved out of my parents house. Missed them ever since as they brought me a kind of peace. I loved having them around me.
I recently bought a house with a nice garden and I’m in the process of starting again. Fancy pigeons, 2 specific breeds. Planning the loft build as we speak.
Besides that, I love woodworking - which I learned from the same pigeon guy who owned a woodworking company.
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu - It's an odd combination of intense physical activity and human chess (setting up attacks in advance while also trying to deflect your opponents attacks, except using chokes or joint breaks). Grapplers are either freak athletes, 120lb stoners, or business professionals. BJJ is one of the most unique sports/martial arts out there, and I encourage everyone to try it at least once.
I started after enrolling my children in it, and then figuring "why the hell not, I should train too."
BJJ is great. I wrestled folkstyle in high school, and then transitioned to BJJ and submission wrestling as an adult. It's a ton of fun and a great workout. Can't recommend highly enough.
I only got out of it because of a combination of A. lack of time, and B. injuries (note: the injuries were more from mountain biking than from BJJ, but I did tear a hip adductor muscle once in BJJ training).
Getting some teenage engineering pocket operators is also something I'd strongly recommend. They're affordable and fun!
Check out this 8 year old building a tune with them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhFIUdICYSA
I learned ableton through trial and error, but I have watched the whole video and got a lot from it. I wish I'd had that resource when I was starting out, would have saved me a lot of time. So I'd say: yes, it's worth it if you're picking up ableton.
I also learned ableton without any resources, but back in 2003 when it was a simpler product. It begs to be tinkered with (I think that’s the draw of it) but it’s a deep bit of software.
Thanks, I will give it a try. I picked up ableton a few months ago and have been poking around. A deeper course like this might open up tricks that I am not aware of.
Recently I got a Circuit Tracks and it's been a hoot. I like using it standalone more than with Ableton (because I haven't gotten around to trying to make entire actual songs). I mostly make grooves and ideas to play with. I got a MicroFreak to go with it but have yet to unlock its features.
After a couple of years of work, I started to DJ for fun and met so many people, and as I got more into synths I go to synth meetups and music maker spaces. Basically unlocked a new friend group!
I have a different perspective. Ableton is fine, but the "Hacker tool" of the sequencer world is Reaper. Very programmable and it has great terms of use. But it does have a learning curve.
Also, I unfortunately didn't care for the pocket operators - only musical instrument I've ever returned. People will likely have more fun with the volcas, the Circuit or inexpensive Behringers.
I have a lot, but photography, building things (lots of woodworking but some electronics and art), rock climbing, camping, going deep on random cooking projects, etc. key is to just follow a thread of interest for as long as you find it interesting. Investing in gear upfront can sometimes be worthwhile, but prototyping can help there.
Building furniture out of wood. I enjoy it a ton, even the boring stuff like sanding isn’t too bad. Sure beats staring at a screen all day (I’m a Software Engineer but left to my own I will be on the computer ALL day).
I find it creative, beautiful, practical, and an opportunity to be outside
Not the healthiest of hobbies but I stumbled into DOTA (the league of legends precursor) 20 years ago and have never fallen out of love.
It's been a dangerous addiction at several points of my life, but in many ways has revealed to me more insight about myself than any other activity.
There is so much variation and nuance, there's always something to learn. For a naturally curious and slightly competitive person, it's quite an intoxicating cocktail.
That's hardcore. I play StarCraft 2 (Protoss) arcade style--quick ladder matches.
Before that my obsession was Go, the board game. Still enjoy it but don't ever feel I have 40min - hour to spare for a game and don't enjoy smaller/faster formats. I'll sometimes do problems on a phone app.
Violin! It was a pandemic hobby I started in 2020, but has turned into a super important aspect of my daily life. I played sax for about 12 years, but wanted to learn something completely different and that always seemed “virtuosic” in my eyes.
Been an awesome journey and just about to learn my first Bach Violin Sonata!
I'm into 'overlanding' which is basically mild offroading. I got into ham radio a few years ago on a whim, and combining the two is great fun and gives a bit of purpose to both hobbies.
Each trip I get to research repeaters. Program the radios. Test while traveling in different locations.
Why am I driving 200 miles into the mountains this weekend? To use the ham radio. Why am I researching and using ham radios? To make driving in the mountains alone safer. It's a win/win.
Camping and ham radio are an excellent combo. Being completely isolated while still being able to communicate with people at a distance. Something very cool about that.
Woodworking - It started when someone on my work slack posted an image of an arcade machine they had made. I thought "I want one of those". So I borrowed a circular saw and made one. Then I was hooked. Now I'm doing lots of home improvements, such as building a coffee bar and converting an unused area into a pantry. I'm currently building some shop furniture, then I'll be converting an unused cupboard near our entry way into a mud room.
The two downsides are:
* It's easy to want to buy all the shiniest tools, which are expensive
* I don't want to buy furniture anymore, I want to make it. But there just aren't enough hours in the day.
For me too. Though it’s more DIY in general (plumbing, electrics, decorating etc too).
Built myself a shed from scratch earlier in the summer as a warm up for building a garden office.
Currently have the roof off the porch (somewhat regrettably given the state the summer in the uk) because the ivy got to it before we purchased the house and it was rotting away. Having to learn a new set of skills around tiling hip rafters. Thank the Lord for YouTube!
It’s amazing the number of tools you end up needing as you go along. Though a circular saw and an impact driver will take you a long way.
yeah this is the same for me. I've slowly built most of our furniture and it's really hard to pay moneydollars for the crappy stuff (even high end) sold anywhere. I can't stand veneered products from Herman Miller for $2k that would be fun to build, but I don't have enough time to build them.
Actually, if you want to get out of this cycle, turning is a good subset of the hobby. A good small turning setup will cost around $1500 brand new (for the lathe, carbide tools, vices, drill bits, etc.). After that the wood tends to be cheap because you can use other people's offcuts or waste material.
Pens in particular are easy to learn, make gifts that people ooh and aah over, and don't take a ton of time. Materials for a pen range from $10 (for a cheap kit) to $35 (for a top of the line kit plus a fancy blank). Once you've made a few you should be spending an hour to an hour and a half per pen. If something goes wrong mid-project you lose the wood and the tubes, and replacement tubes are cheap, so you don't have to re-buy the whole kit.
Once you master that there are a variety of projects that will ramp up the skill step by step. And there are tons of classes around that'll help you gain those skills.
Music is a fantastic option. I've always loved listening but didn't dig into it for a long time. I imagined myself getting into synthesizers and DAWs and figured I didn't need another hobby that keeps me at the workbench or computer. During the pandemic I decided to buy a bass guitar and it turns out there is something to these analog instruments after all. A key part of it for me was intentionally avoiding electronics like pedals or obsessing over amps and pickups. Being able to grab an acoustic and play some tunes around the firepit has been great.
I'm in the same boat, but I like recording too so I got a "digital 8 track" that can completely replace a DAW and allows me to record my acoustic or electric instrument or my voice, and edit the recording, and mix it down into a final product, all on the device.
If you have any interest in recording & want to maintain the part where you stay away from the computer/workbench while you play music, I cannot more strongly recommend a digital 8-track recorder. It's been life-changing for me.
Rock climbing. I always did sport when I was younger (gymnastics, martial arts etc). Then moved to a different country and lost the habit (despite I've kept myself in good shape because of doing calisthenics at home). A year and a half ago, a friend of mine insisted me on give it a try to climbing with him in an indoor gym and oh, boy, I got absolutely hooked to it. A good side effect is that it made me to pursue enjoyment in life. It made me realise that work is not the main thing in life.
You should take an introduction to sewing class, which should basically walk you through the main functions of a standard sewing machine. Then you can go down the rabbit hole of early to mid 20th century antique sewing machines and ponder the downfall of manufacturing once plastics were introduced (mid to late 20th century).
- Karaoke: a friend of mine did a monthly outing to a karaoke bar and invited me along. It turned into a great friend group as well as a fun skill to practice, and now I host karaoke parties and write karaoke software.
- Theater: got into it in middle school and never looked back. The way to get into it now is either to just audition for community shows, or take classes somewhere.
I have found that cooking, building furniture, sewing and other forms of craft are interesting for the same reasons coding is interesting, but without a group of friends who do that stuff I've found it hard to maintain momentum.
My hobby is journalling, my writing or note keeping is simplistic writing of ideas about software that feel interesting to me. I've been journalling in the open since 2013. I am interested in parallelism, multithreading, coroutines, programming language design and implementation.
Writing helps me think and really satisfying. Writing is thinking.
I hope you choose to do something good and positive for your spirit and full of love - something that gets you away from the computer screen, such as study God.
Currently, birding. Got really into it in 2021 since it pretty much runs in the family. I feel that observing the lives of our fellow creatures helps me really destress and put my mind off work. Interestingly, I find that birding while walking in the nature works better in this regard than just walking in the nature.
Get a good pair of binoculars, a bird sound recognition app for your mobile[1], and a bird field guide (as a European, I prefer [2]), and you're good to go.
Nice, i'm an amateur birder, meaning i'm just standing in front of the office building and ..watch the birds. But lately i have been thinking more and more about professionalizing it.
It's so calm and fascinating.
I love to spot any raptor - I'm even a little superstitious about them and tend to take sighting a hawk as a good omen. I also always love to watch a heron/crane - they just seem so dinosaur-ish. Very interesting birds.
I can't spend one day without it, as a break every few hours of coding or meeting, it's really great
It's quite a lot of work, but really the best way to make your brain two sides work together - as well as your fingers, arms, body...
I started 5 years ago, with some prior knowledge of music from being a kid.
Oh, and now I can play with people, to people. I started in my mom's retirement home - she loved it, and other residents too, and even the staff, because all the residents would be so quite after that... and now that I play better I can play to my friends, family..
Combat Robotics! Do you know Battlebots or Robot Wars? Turns out it is a pretty good hobby! You'll learn a lot about materials and parts and their suitable application(s), 3d designing and offcourse building a bot hands on.
Started playing very casually before stepping into a more competitive scene. It's both strategic (intersection between poker and chess) as well as creatively expressive (deckbuilding/theorycrafting).
They can. My friend got his whole deck proxied online for about $50
Problem is that it’s worthless to anyone but him.
The cards are expensive but they also hold some relative value (can be resold) and only real cards are legal in tournaments.
That said, for casual games, proxies are growing in popularity and I always say they’re a moral imperative. Only problem is some people use proxies that use non-standard art or borders, which can really hamper the game (or in one case, be incredibly cringe and awful to play against).
I grew up without TV and learned all the things to keep my mind occupied. The ones I spend most time on:
Woodworking
Playing music (guitar, piano, sax, drums, and Audulus 4)
Programming (started around 90 in qbasic)
Gardening (simple stuff these days, herbs and peppers, tomatoes; I make a lot of sauces to add to meals)
Engine repair (started with tractors, now I just fix small engines)
Building building (just built a greenhouse for friends; designing mine now)
Logic circuit design (EE started in motherboard design as a career, switched to software as hardware went overseas)
I went deep on all these at various points. Anymore really only spend enough time on them throughout the year to keep a connection, muscle memory.
If I had to recommend any I’d say gardening and music.
Learning a musical instrument fosters connectivity between both sides of the brain in a way no other skills based learning does[1]. I credit musical instrument skills for the abundance of creative energy I feel. That I spend time on daily or I feel depressed and “off”.
And a fresh sauce makes boiled potato taste like Michelin star cuisine.
Not sleeping. I just love the quiet night hours or the quiet early morning hours where it's just me in the house and my laptop and I can focus on my little coding projects that never seem to go anywhere.
Very relatable. Missus and the pets go to bed, just me and the peace and quiet. Time to code. Sadly I'm mid 30s now though and I find the late nights destroy me.
Making music. At the ripe old age of 16, I bought DJ Shadow's "Entroducing" album, and wanted to make music just like that. Started out making "music" with the Wave Editor that shipped with Windows 95, and the rest is history.
In the last 26 years or so (man that sounds like a long time), I've learned a number of different DAW's, put a modular system together, learned to play instruments (piano, guitar, drums), and wrote hundreds of songs. It's such a fulfilling hobby. Which has been equally fulfilling every step of the way. From noob to whatever I am now. Can't imagine life without it.
It's pretty dependent on what exactly you want to do, but I have found the Signals Music Studio channel to be a great resource for learning some music theory and composition stuff.
Music theory is not a necessary entry point per se, but it can help to get some basic concepts into your head to play around with. But really, the best thing you can possibly do is just pick something that seems adjacent to music you like and just start screwing around (if you're a metalhead, maybe guitar, if you like EDM, pick any DAW, if you like jazz, get a decent midi keyboard, etc). Music really isn't an intellectual exercise, just start doing something, see what you like, and what you don't like.
I wrote this comment a while back on learning music theory, which has some more thoughts and also some links and pointers to various tools and resources: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37078383. Might be of interest.
Music theory isn't a necessity, and I didn't using anything but samples for the first 5 years or so. But, I'd recommend people learning it as soon as possible. Even just picking out the root, third, fifth, and seventh of a key. Then, making random melodies / sequences until something sounds cool.
LPT: If someone is new, and looking to make house, techno, etc. I'd recommend sticking to minor keys when exploring music theory.
It's changed a lot over the years. There were forums I belonged to early on, but most are gone these days. Typically, if I have a question about something particular these days, I Google it, and usually run into a YouTube video, or a random link (a lot of those end up being Reddit).
I don't release music (although I do consider from time to time). I mostly just enjoy the process, and listening back to older work.
> I don't release music (although I do consider from time to time).
I think you should!
Not that my opinion counts for anything, I need to take my own advice. But my guitar teacher said something recently that really hit me - "You don't need to wait 20 years until you're the perfect player before you put music out into the world."
This was a big part of what made me feel confident enough to publish the solo video I linked in my other comment, and I've got some other stuff in the works too. I am trying (to some very small success so far) to be a little less fearful of looking stupid or putting something half baked out into the world.
Music is for everyone! Share it. (Or ignore this advice, that's ok too, don't let me tell you what to do ;)
110 comments
[ 6.0 ms ] story [ 226 ms ] threadBut no matter how you slice it, two of my top hobbies are definitely fishing (mostly freshwater fishing, mostly for bass) and bike riding (mostly MTB, some road, some BMX). Both are hobbies I took up when I was very young and have been with me for basically my entire life.
There are "tech" things that could also be considered hobbies, like messing around with discrete electronics, working with Arduino's and other microcontroller platforms, goofing around with Raspberry Pi, etc. But to some extent I have interest in those things simply for their own sake, but also for a career / financial / commercial sake. That is, I have ideas about building things to sell, or at least to learn things that will advance my ability to build other things to sell, etc. So "hobby" I guess, but not "pure hobby" if that makes sense.
How did these things start?
Well...
Fishing - my dad took me fishing as a kid. Both freshwater and saltwater. The bug didn't necessarily "bite" right away, but by the time I was around 11 or 12 I fell into a habit of going fishing a lot with an older friend from school who lived down the road from me, and I just slowly got more and more into it. I had a few pauses or gaps here and there where I didn't fish much, but the pull was always there even when I left other things take precedence and keep me away from the water. I got back into fishing really often in 2019 and have fished relatively regularly since.
Bike Riding - my parents bought me a bike when I was pretty young. 8? 9? I don't really remember. I didn't like it and never rode at all really. A few years later I met a friend who was into BMX riding (same friend from the fishing story, BTW) and begged my parents for a BMX bike. They didn't want to buy me one at first since I never rode the earlier bike, but somehow, by hook or by crook, I managed to convince them to buy me one. I started doing dirt jumps and some flatland freestyle stuff and was hooked. Riding Mountain Bikes came years later when I was in my late 20's or early 30's. A few years after that I bought a road, nominally for "cross training" to support my MTB hobby. But over the last couple of years I've started to see roading biking as something I do for its own sake as well.
Electronics - I was just always into taking stuff apart and tinkering with innards from a young age. Electronics and electricity always fascinated me. I found a good "basic electronics" book in the library at my high-school when I got to that age, and started actually studying some of the theory. For quite a while I thought I would major in electrical engineering in college... different factors led me to major in computer science instead, but I always kept that interest in electronics.
The passion for playing chess is one of the most unaccountable in the world. It slaps the theory of natural selection in the face. It is the most absorbing of occupations. The least satisfying of desires. A nameless excrescence upon life. It annihilates a man. You have, let us say, a promising politician, a rising artist that you wish to destroy. Dagger or bomb are archaic and unreliable - but teach him, inoculate him with chess.
http://bjornwestergard.com/log/2023-04-05-birding.gmi
I recently bought a house with a nice garden and I’m in the process of starting again. Fancy pigeons, 2 specific breeds. Planning the loft build as we speak.
Besides that, I love woodworking - which I learned from the same pigeon guy who owned a woodworking company.
I started after enrolling my children in it, and then figuring "why the hell not, I should train too."
I only got out of it because of a combination of A. lack of time, and B. injuries (note: the injuries were more from mountain biking than from BJJ, but I did tear a hip adductor muscle once in BJJ training).
https://www.ableton.com/en/live/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iuRsiKtObw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxY0x1i3XhY
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9oiyAGA6zOTSPR5-ttojODT4...
Getting some teenage engineering pocket operators is also something I'd strongly recommend. They're affordable and fun! Check out this 8 year old building a tune with them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhFIUdICYSA
I also learned ableton without any resources, but back in 2003 when it was a simpler product. It begs to be tinkered with (I think that’s the draw of it) but it’s a deep bit of software.
Btw thanks for the links, they look super helpful.
Also, I unfortunately didn't care for the pocket operators - only musical instrument I've ever returned. People will likely have more fun with the volcas, the Circuit or inexpensive Behringers.
I find it creative, beautiful, practical, and an opportunity to be outside
It's been a dangerous addiction at several points of my life, but in many ways has revealed to me more insight about myself than any other activity.
There is so much variation and nuance, there's always something to learn. For a naturally curious and slightly competitive person, it's quite an intoxicating cocktail.
Before that my obsession was Go, the board game. Still enjoy it but don't ever feel I have 40min - hour to spare for a game and don't enjoy smaller/faster formats. I'll sometimes do problems on a phone app.
Been an awesome journey and just about to learn my first Bach Violin Sonata!
Each trip I get to research repeaters. Program the radios. Test while traveling in different locations.
Why am I driving 200 miles into the mountains this weekend? To use the ham radio. Why am I researching and using ham radios? To make driving in the mountains alone safer. It's a win/win.
The two downsides are: * It's easy to want to buy all the shiniest tools, which are expensive * I don't want to buy furniture anymore, I want to make it. But there just aren't enough hours in the day.
Built myself a shed from scratch earlier in the summer as a warm up for building a garden office.
Currently have the roof off the porch (somewhat regrettably given the state the summer in the uk) because the ivy got to it before we purchased the house and it was rotting away. Having to learn a new set of skills around tiling hip rafters. Thank the Lord for YouTube!
It’s amazing the number of tools you end up needing as you go along. Though a circular saw and an impact driver will take you a long way.
Do it myself and any issues are easier to live with as they are my fault.
I make a lot of mistakes, but as you say, you can make your peace with them.
Why would you spend $400 on a piece of furniture when you could make it yourself for $800?
I too have been bitten by this bug.
Pens in particular are easy to learn, make gifts that people ooh and aah over, and don't take a ton of time. Materials for a pen range from $10 (for a cheap kit) to $35 (for a top of the line kit plus a fancy blank). Once you've made a few you should be spending an hour to an hour and a half per pen. If something goes wrong mid-project you lose the wood and the tubes, and replacement tubes are cheap, so you don't have to re-buy the whole kit.
Once you master that there are a variety of projects that will ramp up the skill step by step. And there are tons of classes around that'll help you gain those skills.
If you have any interest in recording & want to maintain the part where you stay away from the computer/workbench while you play music, I cannot more strongly recommend a digital 8-track recorder. It's been life-changing for me.
- Theater: got into it in middle school and never looked back. The way to get into it now is either to just audition for community shows, or take classes somewhere.
I have found that cooking, building furniture, sewing and other forms of craft are interesting for the same reasons coding is interesting, but without a group of friends who do that stuff I've found it hard to maintain momentum.
Writing helps me think and really satisfying. Writing is thinking.
I hope you choose to do something good and positive for your spirit and full of love - something that gets you away from the computer screen, such as study God.
Get a good pair of binoculars, a bird sound recognition app for your mobile[1], and a bird field guide (as a European, I prefer [2]), and you're good to go.
[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.tu_chemnitz...
[2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.natureguid...
My favorites are Corvids.
I can't spend one day without it, as a break every few hours of coding or meeting, it's really great
It's quite a lot of work, but really the best way to make your brain two sides work together - as well as your fingers, arms, body...
I started 5 years ago, with some prior knowledge of music from being a kid.
Oh, and now I can play with people, to people. I started in my mom's retirement home - she loved it, and other residents too, and even the staff, because all the residents would be so quite after that... and now that I play better I can play to my friends, family..
It changed my life.
Started playing very casually before stepping into a more competitive scene. It's both strategic (intersection between poker and chess) as well as creatively expressive (deckbuilding/theorycrafting).
Downsides: $$$
Problem is that it’s worthless to anyone but him.
The cards are expensive but they also hold some relative value (can be resold) and only real cards are legal in tournaments.
That said, for casual games, proxies are growing in popularity and I always say they’re a moral imperative. Only problem is some people use proxies that use non-standard art or borders, which can really hamper the game (or in one case, be incredibly cringe and awful to play against).
Woodworking
Playing music (guitar, piano, sax, drums, and Audulus 4)
Programming (started around 90 in qbasic)
Gardening (simple stuff these days, herbs and peppers, tomatoes; I make a lot of sauces to add to meals)
Engine repair (started with tractors, now I just fix small engines)
Building building (just built a greenhouse for friends; designing mine now)
Logic circuit design (EE started in motherboard design as a career, switched to software as hardware went overseas)
I went deep on all these at various points. Anymore really only spend enough time on them throughout the year to keep a connection, muscle memory.
If I had to recommend any I’d say gardening and music.
Learning a musical instrument fosters connectivity between both sides of the brain in a way no other skills based learning does[1]. I credit musical instrument skills for the abundance of creative energy I feel. That I spend time on daily or I feel depressed and “off”.
And a fresh sauce makes boiled potato taste like Michelin star cuisine.
[1] https://youtu.be/R0JKCYZ8hng?si=wkyGmTs51d0yp9zI
In the last 26 years or so (man that sounds like a long time), I've learned a number of different DAW's, put a modular system together, learned to play instruments (piano, guitar, drums), and wrote hundreds of songs. It's such a fulfilling hobby. Which has been equally fulfilling every step of the way. From noob to whatever I am now. Can't imagine life without it.
Music theory is not a necessary entry point per se, but it can help to get some basic concepts into your head to play around with. But really, the best thing you can possibly do is just pick something that seems adjacent to music you like and just start screwing around (if you're a metalhead, maybe guitar, if you like EDM, pick any DAW, if you like jazz, get a decent midi keyboard, etc). Music really isn't an intellectual exercise, just start doing something, see what you like, and what you don't like.
I wrote this comment a while back on learning music theory, which has some more thoughts and also some links and pointers to various tools and resources: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37078383. Might be of interest.
LPT: If someone is new, and looking to make house, techno, etc. I'd recommend sticking to minor keys when exploring music theory.
I don't release music (although I do consider from time to time). I mostly just enjoy the process, and listening back to older work.
I think you should!
Not that my opinion counts for anything, I need to take my own advice. But my guitar teacher said something recently that really hit me - "You don't need to wait 20 years until you're the perfect player before you put music out into the world."
This was a big part of what made me feel confident enough to publish the solo video I linked in my other comment, and I've got some other stuff in the works too. I am trying (to some very small success so far) to be a little less fearful of looking stupid or putting something half baked out into the world.
Music is for everyone! Share it. (Or ignore this advice, that's ok too, don't let me tell you what to do ;)