For me right now, it’s books followed shortly of watching things. And I mean watching things that isn’t YouTube. Recently, I’ve been donating totes of books, books I’ve spent a long time having thrifted for and waited to get without having to cave to spending online.
And those books just sat there for months and months without being picked up to be read. Even books I wanted! I used to have a 5-shelf bookcase filled with books, another 3 shelf filled with books, a structure compromising of a shoe shelf and TV-stand filled with books. Now after donating things, I am only down to a single three-shelf bookcase just packed up with what books I have decided to remain with me.
As for watching things, I’ve discarded over 120+ DVDs from my collection, I still have a hefty amount, like I have nearly 5 full disc books filled with discs of a wide variety of movies and shows to watch should I ever not be online or want time off from being online. All just continue to sit there unwatched as I just keep watching YouTube video after YouTube video.
I just think I am coming around to the acceptance that I just will not give myself time to these hobbies and that they’re probably dying out, I predict that if I don’t do anything in the next couple years should they all sit and gather more dust, I’ll just let them all go.
Electronics. Components are getting harder to get (internet orders makes hem expensive) and my eyes are no longer that good when soldering (even with glasses)
Honestly, ALL of them. I used to make beer. Used to have one batch fermenting while another was carbonating, but it’s been years since I even thought about getting all that stuff out. I really don’t drink much anymore, so that may be part of it. I also have a closet full of board games, but just getting the pieces out and setting up the board just feels like it isn’t worth all that effort.
I got into brewing in the early 2000s and loved it. Made some great recipes and always had a good selection of beer on hand. Then microbreweries started popping up everywhere, it was great … until I realized that I could buy a keg from a local brewery cheaper than I could brew it. And I didn’t have to do all the cleaning.
No regrets. I still have the skill and equipment, so if I want or need to brew my own I can, and it gives me time to pursue other hobbies.
It was never about the money (for me at least) It’s enjoying something you made yourself and enjoying making it.
That’s why I do all my home renovations/reconstructions/improvements myself. It takes much more time but it’s done how I want it and I can modify the plans underway without implications. Not having to wait 6+++ months for a contractor and the lower price are nice, but that’s nothing compared to the feeling and pride of having built it yourself. That feeling lasts many, many years.
Sounds like depression.
I don’t doubt it.
I’ve slowed down brewing beer too. I travel for work more and get to try more small breweries all over the place. But I’m still glad I have the home brewing behind me, I know way more about styles, ingredients, processes than I would otherwise.
I’ve been thinking about how to make the tasting more of a hobby. Like keeping a notebook with descriptions of beers I’ve tried and what made me pick up a particular brew. There are apps for logging beers but I’m not looking for that, it’s too gamified. I don’t want digital badges for drinking beer!
Recognize the beer part. Otherwise, drop one hobby, then one or two new ones surface.
Dancing and Theatre. I used to love doing improv and dancing Salsa. Now I can’t find the time and energy.
Ok I wrote a response but I was never into dancing but they had free swing stuff that I would go to occasionally. Never got that good but it was a fun thing to do once in awhile. I also have been in various choruses and choirs and they are really fun but also really sorta exhausting. Anyway your response made me add two things to my list.
Unfortunately, the types of video games I can play has been severely limited in the past several years by muscle disease. I have tried to adapt with low-APM turn-based games like Slay the Spire, Into the Breach and chess. While I have developed a certain fondness for these games, they were never my first choice.
The recent release of Silksong has been especially hard on me because its predecessor was one of my favorites. I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch a play-through of it yet.
Super duper looking forward to Mewgenics, though! Only 4 months to go.
The new Final Fantasy Tactics Remaster is really good if you haven’t played it yet.
One of the best games ever made imo
Thanks for the suggestion. I forgot that came out recently and I never did play the original or the PSP remake. I hear lots of good things about it.
Have you tried Balatro? If you like Slay the Spite there’s a good chance you will enjoy it.
Definitely. Love that game. If it’s turn-based and even remotely popular there’s a very good chance I’ve played it.
Nice. Got any suggestions?
Also a very different kind of game but have you played citizen sleeper?
Never heard of it. Looks pretty interesting.
Lately I’ve really been enjoying Shogun Showdown. I made a post recently outlining a bunch of the games I like. I can vouch for all of those. Make sure to check out the rest of the thread too. I avoided repeating what others said.
strongly recommend just cheating the shit out of silksong on PC. download a trainer and turn down damage taken during combat + make yourself invincible for platforming challenges.
Yeah, same when it comes to reading. All of my other hobbies involve making things, and I don’t ever dedicate time for reading anymore. I don’t have time for any other hobbies anyways right now.
Videogames
Satellite and space tracking. Satnogs with some custom hardware.
I’ve done it for a number of years, helping citizen scientists all over the world. But because of the cuts and less and less people getting into the hobby, its been hard to keep being motivated.
Took down the setup a bit ago for some repairs and haven’t put it back. Probably won’t.
I used to get so much enjoyment out of video games. I could play for entire weekends. Now I sit down and play for an hour or so and start to get bored.
This is only the first stage.
Next you’ll stop gaming completely, but still enjoy watching others play.
Then even watching gets annoying. That’s where I am now. I don’t know what’s next.
Next stage is some amount of time away from video games.
The stage after that is nostalgia: someone will mention one of the games you loved back in the day and you’ll think “That was when I was happiest. I should find out how to play that again.”
Then you’ll find some way to play it, whether by cobbling together some emulation software or buying some As Seen on TV handheld game that includes your game and a hundred others.
You’ll scratch a little bit of the itch, but decide to start checking out the current video game scene.
Once you realize everything now is too flashy and fast and annoying or it has some dreaded multiplayer requirement that you no longer have enough friends to fulfill and the public rooms of the game are filled with a bunch of children.
Eventually, you’ll stumble into the future’s version of Stardew Valley and be content just building quiet little worlds by yourself.
Next you’ll stop gaming completely, but still enjoy watching others play.
Speak for yourself.
When adults get bored of gaming, it’s because they end up doing other things in their lives completely unrelated to it.
That’s definitely me as well. I thought my tastes in games were changing, since I wasn’t enjoying the types of games I usually did, but I eventually concluded that I was just bored of gaming in general. It feels weird, since gaming has been my main hobby since forever and I still keep up with gaming news. I’ve since taken up a new hobby (Gunpla) that’s been scratching an itch I didn’t realize I’ve had for quite some time. My wallet hates me though.
All hobbies that don’t involve a screen. I’ve been having serious mobility issues, where standing for more than a few minutes is painful and I leave the house only in my wheelchair. It makes going to restaurants, concerts and events difficult. Makes going on hikes impossible or even existing in parks more painful than pleasurable.
Appreciate your legs y’all. :(
Motorcycling. I live in a dense urban area and the traffic here is nightmarish. It takes me like 2+ hours to reach good riding roads, and that’s more time than I’m willing to invest these days. I’ll still use it for short city errands but I’ve noticed a drastic drop off compared to say five years ago.
Maybe consider a bicycle? Similar enjoyment but better suited to dense cities because you’re allowed to go on multi-use paths and other places motorcycles aren’t.
I do bike, but it’s not one of my passions. Very different experience than a motorbike :)
As a kid I had a friend who modified his bike to make motorbike sounds, could this provide the experience you are looking for?
🤣
Appreciate the thought but I don’t think so. The cornering and getting s knee down are the things I miss most.
Same here, but for different reasons. I used to need to commute a lot, which is a lot more fun (and much quicker) on a motorcycle. When the kids were born, I wanted to find a job closer to home. Now I live a 10 minute bicycle ride from the office.
The kids have grown up now, but my motorcycle has worn out and I have not bothered to replace it.
Gaming has left me with this always connected, forced multiplayer so there’s some fucking reason to justify the need bullshit. Diablo 4 is fucking garbage because of the need for engagement, ladders, endgame content, and I fucking hate it.
Just give me games I can obsess over for a month and beat and be done. And I probably still will replay it fifty times over the next decade because there’s nothing as good anyway (Hi, Baldur’s Gate and Skyrim).
I find myself flooded with new releases I don’t care about, but then go and spend 2 months playing through all of mass effect instead
You should use an app like Topaz AI to upscale all your old dvds and watch shows in HD. I’ve recovered so many old series, like ALF, that will never be released in HD, now very watchable at 4x using the Iris2 upscaler.m settings and some parameter adjustments.
*I’m in no way affiliated with Topaz, only a user of the app from early days in 2020/2021.
New hobby for me!
It’s a fun one, but I desperately wish there was a way to run it without needing a VM or something. It’s all just windows or mac based, but they do have the best models
Programming. I don’t like where it’s heading and I don’t like the culture
I used to be a software engineer, but moved into infrastructure instead, so I haven’t really been programming much for few years. But all the vibe coding I see around me is making me yearn for coding the old-school way. And I’ve been searching a bit for something to apply that drive to…
The piano. I used to play almost everyday and I got pretty good at it but I rarely play it now. Just yesterday was the first time I played it in a couple years
After a lifetime of reading comic books, and amassing a pretty large collection, i just… stopped. It wasn’t so much losing interest as I’d gotten what I needed from them. I just don’t need them anymore. Now I’m left with 50 some boxes of comics to get rid of…
Im not sure how much I miss it as I to am a recovering comic book collector. If you have anything from the powerline series (powerline, doctor zero, saint george, or critical mass) from way back and are near chicago and care to exchange let me know.
Damn, 50 boxes is a LOT. I thought I had too many to get rid of… I think I have around 24 that I have to offload.
I do not envy you at all.
Yeah. And I was never a collector so much as an accumulator (preservationist, if we’re being generous). It’s all just stuff that I read.
At the very least, you could be sitting on some issues that collectors could pay a pretty penny for. I would be hesitant on giving your comics to those used games store that have just turned into these like ‘nerd-caves’ where they mark up nearly everything you give them.
If you know of any comic stores or so, those could be a route too.
I’m resolute on not selling to any sort of store. I’ll get 25¢ per comic at most. And then, yeah, they’ll sell at much more of a markup.
