I really love physical things I can do with my body as a counterbalance to working on the computer- weight lifting, woodworking, and sailing add a lot of value to my life, and have gotten me outdoors and in shape. I'm currently building a wood sailboat in my garage together with my son, using ancient woodworking tools I inherited from my grandfather.
I grew up on the computer since I was a preteen. My dad moved 2000 miles away when I was 11. Every job I've ever had since I was 14 was web/software related and I am nearly 39. I feel like I have no practical skills outside of computers and the idea of building things with my hands or using power tools just fills me with anxiety. I wish I knew how to break out of the mindset.
1. Don't require you to interact with screens 2. Require your full attention (e.g. if you were listening to a podcast while doing it, you wouldn't remember a single thing they were talking about) 3. Has a social aspect, but is also possible to do on your own 4. Preferably physical 5. Preferably has some level of "controllable danger/risk", e.g. mountain biking is good because you can walk down hard stuff or stay on easy trails, vs. road biking you don't control the risk of getting injured / killed by a driver.
Some that fall into this category are climbing, skiing, mountain biking, surfing, windsurfing.
There's the other category that this post about woodworking scratches: building things and developing new skills and mastery doing so. However, these don't often come with an easily-accessible, accepting community; it's usually just you alone in a garage. Given how important social connection is, and how isolating a lot of tech jobs can be, this is a void that a lot of us on this orange website need to actively pursue.
If you're in any "tech city", there's definitely a climbing gym nearby. Climbers are almost always amicable, and for the socially anxious, it's a great pretense to interact with someone (because they have to be on the other end of the rope anyway). The amount of capital outlay to get started is low (e.g. shoes, belay device, and a harness will cost <$300 total if you get nice stuff, albeit sticking with the non-expert shoes!), and you can pretty much start having fun right away (vs skiing takes at least a season to get confident enough to truly start having fun and not "surviving").
I think people often turn away from sailing because it's seen as an expensive elitist thing for wealthy people, but the truth is the polar opposite of that- most people in the sailing community are working class and often have either small dinghies or older boats you can get for a few hundred dollars and easily maintain yourself. I paid $800 for my first working sailboat, and the first yacht club I joined had a literal garden shed full of rusty hand tools for a "clubhouse."
Agree. With zero background in wind-sports I joined a crew. The yacht owner mostly just wanted someone that would turn up reliably - we had one guy who was terrible on the boat but he was reliably there. Good mixture of backgrounds of the crew.
I really enjoyed being part of a team sport.
The main cost was committing to one day a week. I got cheap gear (jacket, gloves) and currently I use a summer wetsuit to stay warm and dry (cold water in our Banks Peninsula harbours).
> climbing, skiing, mountain biking, surfing, windsurfing
Suggested by previous comment. But they are not team sports. I am a developer and those sports are good and social but they are focused on your own personal skills.
The tricky part for team sports is coordination with other folks. I can bike out my backyard and hit a 90 min XC loop to clear my head without needing to agree with anyone else on time. I also only have to coordinate with one other person for climbing (or often 0, if there's already a critical mass of folks I know who are there as often as I am).
I do agree that the specific dynamics of team sports are desirable (e.g. figuring out how to socially get along in pursuit of a common goal vs. a bunch of individuals going about their own pursuit...together), and often the social force towards not letting one's team down by ghosting or not practicing can be a motivating factor for a lot of folks on this site who might need that to ensure they keep showing up each week.
One thing I may add is commitment and responsibility, as in, if you are careless, people may die, including yourself. In most software work, with all these tests and reviews and backups, you don't have that, for very good reasons, but it kind of feels like what you are doing is inconsequential.
But he taught me crude woodworking like framing in houses- almost none of the tools or skills translate into fine woodworking required for building things like furniture or boats. Until the last year I didn't know how to cut with the grain, what a planer was for, etc.
What my dad really taught me was the confidence that I can learn what I need as I go, to do almost anything. I'm not afraid to start big projects where I have zero idea how to do any of the steps required at first, and am expecting to learn them one at a time as I go. My dad would regularly jump into things like buying a car with a blown engine and expecting to rebuild it without any clue where to start- and then follow books and advice, and do it successfully the first time. So I learned to also do that.
YouTube has been a huge boon- anyone can learn almost anything for free, without needing someone to teach them first. Also tech like 3D printers allows people to get into making things without the physical skills previously needed.
Nowadays, I'll set everything up, cut/buy the metal, etc. and usually for under $100 have someone come over and do the actual welding for me.
Keeping the tungsten from touching the bead is harder than it looks.
The thing with welding is that it doesn’t give you any time to figure things out in the moment. Sort of like tennis in that way. You hit it wrong and you gotta go get the ball. Start wrong with welding and gotta get the angle grinder and restart.
You can also download his follow-up, "The Anarchist's Design Book", free here: https://lostartpress.com/products/the-anarchists-design-book
Between those two, they will teach you what tools you need and how to build simple furniture by hand. Start small.
I didn't have any experience in any of these before and I was not particularly athletic. You only need to find something you want to try, and if you like it try to commit to it for a couple of years.
In my example, I started running when I signed up for a 10k race as a team event when I joined my company, and realized the racing experience was actually enjoyable (regardless of my performance). And for woodworking, I signed up for a 6 weeks course to make a simple box at my local recreation center, and ended up making a couple of furniture or decorative pieces that are not fancy at all but still a lot more interesting than IKEA stuff.
I've also replaced the starter and replaced the default head unit with something modern that includes GPS. Most of it was intimidating to get started, but none of it was what I would call difficult. There's too many very specific guides around showing you exactly what you need to do. And developers are used to following guides and running into inconsistent documentation and troubleshooting from there. Most of them would be right at home stumbling their way through auto repair.
Last year I epoxied my garage floor and got very good results thanks to my YouTube studies. My YouTube internship has also lead to me re-modelling my entire kitchen. I designed everything in sketchup and am in the middle of building the custom cabinets. I'll end up mixing and pouring concrete countertops myself as well. I've repaired my dishwasher twice and my dryer three times by looking up symptoms online and ordering the most likely parts and just digging in. Every time there have been videos with the specific model and the specific problem that I can follow along with.
Again, none of this is what I would consider to be difficult relative to some of the technical problems I've had to face at work. It's all very well documented processes and combined with the ability to troubleshoot and the budget to not have to fight your tools all the time and most things seem to be very achievable by non-experts. I still don't consider myself to be "handy". But I know I can fix pretty much anything in my house or on my vehicle with enough tutorials and time.
Watch a YouTube video.
Plan on failing a few times in ways you don’t expect.
Remember that this is a hobby so the stake are low.
Part of it is that they pushed me towards skills they thought would help me more, like computers... my dad liked to brag he had one of the first computers on the block, and that he put me in front of the computer as soon as I could sit up. They pushed me towards getting good grades instead of knowing how to work with physical objects.
Part of it is interest, like I wanted to do my own thing instead of my parents' things, once I had the choice. That's partly because my parents just weren't very kind or patient teachers, they were hypercritical, exacting perfectionists. Partly because my friends weren't working with physical objects much, so it didn't seem like a good way to connect with my peers.
But yeah, my parents were extremely present and they still did not pass on their knowledge.
I mean hell there's plenty you can do that doesn't require learning at all.
I get more enjoyment whole-assing one thing than half-assing many, in my case. Not to say hobbies aren't cool - I know somebody that built an entire guitar starting from wood - but I'd rather spend that time going even further in my main thing. "Majoring in the minors" or whatever.
I hope it doesn't come across as some sigma grindset stuff, it's not that I suppress my urge to have fun hobbies - I just feel happier and more secure incrementally building on my main career than creating a new persona for an activity I'm indifferent to.
If the prerequisites for having awesome hobbies are, "Having a garage," "Inheriting tools from one's grandparents," and "Having the time do something with both," there would be your answer.
I built many things at my desk or the kitchen table in our flat with very simple tools. Even a single Swiss Army knife can be used to achieve a lot. And you don't need a lot of time to make small things.
It can be easy to be jealous of the DIY YouTubers with massive workshops (I'm jealous!), but I find it more satisfying to take inspiration from the kinds of simple things people make/made in simpler societies/civilisations.
I actually felt a little stupid accepting these tools and setting up a space for them, when I later realized that I already had free access to several local community woodshops through a few different mechanisms... I am thinking about getting rid of some or all of the tools and using those instead.
I think it's pretty easy to make excuses for why something is impossible, but if people really wanted to, almost anyone could do it. The average teenager in the USA buys themselves single outfits of clothing that cost more than the basics to get into woodworking. Most Americans have streaming and Amazon Prime subscriptions that cost a lot more than I spend on woodworking- and I don't have any subscriptions like that.
Awesome hobbies are awesome! But they require time, and in some cases, financial resources.
I find plenty of time to do my hobbies despite being a single dad, and having a high stress academic PI job. I have every weekend and evening free, and I use them. I also involve my kid in my hobbies- we do them together, so it's also parenting time.
I think most people aren't short on time, but short on energy because of poor physical and mental health- things that can be solved/addressed. For me, the hobbies themselves are a key part of staying healthy enough to have a lot of energy. But also not the only thing- I had serious medical problems that caused fatigue, which I needed to treat to have the energy I now have.
I also usually find a way to do hobbies cheaply, or even make money at them. For example, with cars and boats I get cheap ones that need work, fix them myself, and usually sell for enough more to keep the hobby self sustaining.
Ultimately, the most important thing is to just do it, even if it seems too expensive/inaccessible/etc. Take a leap/risk and find a way to overcome the barriers, don't come up with excuses to stop before you even start.
The obscene idea is that whatever hobby you pick up you must master, be great at it. Fail a lot at your hobby and learn from the mistakes. Perfection in your hobbies comes from the time you spent failing. This is the time you should long after a hectic day, week or month, a time to fail.
Once in a while you will create something you love, it probably won't even be good. It doesn't matter. Your not making a dollar on your hobby(do not try to), your carving your mind and body into a better person.
After work, after kids, after exercise, I've spent many nights just carving wood into what ever I feel like. Spoons, forks, etc. Many of them suck, many have been used to keep me warm on a cool night, none have expected anything from me, its always there when I have time and the will.
I've also suggest some cut gloves as well, you need your digits for the next time you decide to pick up your hobby.
I used to buy/sell/repair cars as an undergrad in college both for fun and spare money, and did it on the side of public roads, and outside in a low budget apartment parking lot.
For many equipment-intensive hobbies, you can also take classes, e.g. at a local community college or community center, which are taught in places with all of the equipment provided.
when I was a kid, when my dad was repairing the house or car I was always "holding the flashlight" or he would actually teach me to use power tools and do the repairs myself while guiding me along.
The larger projects would often span two summers. He also did not contribute to his projects on Sundays because he is religious.
I find it very hard to relax by just chilling on a beach, or reading a book in the afternoon. I just want to work on a project.
What I find really fun is that often when I'm working on a project, my 5 year old daughter will get in to a project mindset herself, and will be working on her own thing (sticky tape, cardboard, etc), while I'm fixing a bicycle or building something. It's a really fun companionable time, where we're both working on our own thing, but in each other's company.
> don't understand why more adults don't have awesome hobbies...
Has the curve on the creator/consumer axis shifted in recent times or has it always been skewed toward consuming? Or is there instead a social axis that has been waning recently? I'm thinking of the once popular Bridge card game or bowling leagues as examples...
And then there a collecting based hobbies* which have been ruined by being able buy rare things from anywhere in a click. Now getting a stamp collection isn’t a pursuit, it’s just an afternoon on eBay with your credit card.
*one exception here is birdwatching, which I’ve anecdotally seen a huge increase in. Almost all my friends are aware of Merlin and many Hanna the habit to stop to ask “what’s that” if they see an unfamiliar bird
Social media totally shifts and ruins our experience of things: it becomes a performance to impress others rather than actually fun itself.
Once I realized that- I realized the people everyone envies online aren't even having fun, or actually enjoying the hobby. That person doing extreme camping on Instagram with the most glamorous photos: it's 100% fake. They're lugging camera equipment to remote places, and likely bringing a professional paid photographer. They probably tore it all down and slept in a hotel after setting up camp for the photo.
Maybe it's become easier to consume incredible amounts of content for free recently, but it's also never been easier to make things if you want, either in terms of access to cheap materials and tools or instructional content. Perhaps the one thing that has waned a little is closer-knit forums that have been replaced with endless Reddit.