adult hobbies
This week has been less than optimal. There's the usual work stuff, okay, but outside of that my mind has gone off on one of its spirals, the kind of spiral i haven't been on since the Finding Clothes For An Ogre Debacle of April 2024.
The trigger for the current debacle is - you guessed it - buying stuff. Or more to the point, NOT buying stuff, because that's what the end result usually is.
There was a period in my life where i did not give much of a shit about my bipolar disorder diagnosis, in fact i just kinda reveled in making poor decisions because i thought it made me more interesting, or more lovable, or maybe i didn't really think about it at all, i just did it. One of the poor decisions of the early days was to rack up a large credit card debt buying all kinds of random stuff, mostly music-related. The abject misery i felt about being trapped with that debt eventually led me to pay it off, and pay off my student loans too, and then vow to never, ever again in my life go into debt, for anything. I'd rather be homeless. At least i'd be free.
But that doesn't mean my mind stopped thinking about buying things. It just meant that if i ever did buy anything, i immediately felt sick to the stomach and eventually depressed afterwards. So it turns out that one treatment for hypomanic behavior is having an overwhelming dread of ever being in debt, i.e. beholden to someone else. Freedom is everything to me, absolutely everything.
It can get a little ridiculous, though, like the long period where i did not have a toaster even though i rather liked eating toast, because the grill was right there and i could toast bread that way, if a little less conveniently. My friends thought i was crazy, and i think at some point along the way an ex did persuade me to get a toaster, and i felt guilty every time i used it. (Have i owned a toaster in the last 10 years? Of course fucking not. Fortunately in Europe the bread is good enough you don't need to toast it and in Asia it's bad enough to not even bother with bread at all.)
I also do not own a fork, because if you need a fork to eat, you failed in the kitchen. Cut it smaller before you throw it in the pan. Use a spoon or chopsticks. Et cetera.
Anyway, normally this doesn't really affect my life, because i have figured out the things that are a necessity to me, and i begrudgingly spend the money when i need those things. For example: computer and input devices. Phone. Wok/frypan. Bowl. Underwear. Well, actually not underwear, but i already did the clothes topic to death a couple months back.
When it does affect me is when i think about hobbies. Most hobbies require a purchase. And that's when my brain goes nuts, because i have this corner of my mind that doesn't want to spend anything at all, and another corner of my mind that says if i do buy something it better be the smallest, cheapest, simplest version of the thing that will satisfy my requirements, so if i ever need to move i don't have a mountain of useless shit to deal with.
Because, let's be honest, it will be useless. Except for people who are mad passionate about their hobby to the point it becomes essentially a job, most people end up with piles and piles of junk that they bought once upon a time in the hope that it would fun, or inspiring, or this, or that, and then maybe they use it once a month or once a year or never and presumably spend the rest of their lives with that voice permanently in their ear whispering "meanwhile, kids are starving in Africa". (Please update the voice of conscience to the era and context of your youth, this one was the middle-class mantra in First World countries during the 1980s.)
And i know this, because i remember when i bought all those musical instruments, and i spent years noodling around with them, and it was a fun enough diversion, but in the end did i keep it up? No. So every time i think to myself "maybe i should buy a piece of gear", i stay up till 4am clicking around websites looking at every single bit of gear in existence, trying to find the perfect thing that would do exactly what i need and not make me feel like shit for buying it, and then i don't buy it, and here i am again, still not fucking writing any music. I suppose i should see that as a success, because the end result is exactly the same, except maybe i saved $150 or $250. Because this is the level i pare my expectations down to. You think i'm fretting this hard over top-of-the-line stuff? Ho ho ho.
Perhaps you are still reading this, and you're thinking to yourself "dear lord, amw, you are a fucking nutjob, pull yourself together and just buy something nice, who cares if you only use it for a month?" And you would be right. I know that this thought process is nonsensical. That's what makes it even more frustrating. I can't stop my brain from going down that fucking spiral, and then because i stayed up all night stressing about it, i get sleep-deprived, which makes my thought process the next day even more compromised, and it ends up in that dark mania that kicks my ass back to depressionville.
If i write about it on LiveJournal, will that nip it in the bud?
Here's the thing. The two things, actually, from this week.
Thing number one. I spend a huge amount of time in front of a screen all day. Literally the entire day at work, and every single moment of my waking hours aside from cycling to work and cooking dinner. I consume everything through my computer or my phone. And i don't feel bad about it, because i like to do it. Watching TV shows is a hobby of mine. Reading the news is a hobby of mine. But earlier this week i had this great idea, seeing as i spend at least 2-3 hours a day reading plain text (blogs, newspapers, wiki), why not buy an eink device that is just as convenient as my phone or tablet, but minus the eye strain? Well that spiraled into looking up every single eink device that exists, debating the merits of jailbreaking a closed device over using an Android device, different versions of Android, Android with Gapps vs no Gapps, bla bla bla and in the end i bought nothing because i didn't want to spend all my time faffing around with de-DRMing my Kindle books, or rooting the fucking Android, or whatever other nerd shit that i do in my day job, and i felt guilty paying more for a device that might avoid the faff, just in case it isn't perfect and then i don't use it.
Thing number two. I started playing a game last night and the music in the game was terrible. It was an indie urban fantasy/detective horror type game, which is a genre that often features corny Halloween Nintendo music that makes me want to stab a fork in my ear. (Fortunately i don't own any forks.) So i turned the music off and started playing tracks from my own collection as background music. And (here's the reason why i don't listen to music very often), i was so distracted by how great the music was, i Alt-Tabbed away from the game and looked at the tracks, and then got the idea to buy a DJ controller so i could more actively listen to and enjoy my music. Well, you know what happened next. Up all night looking at every DJ controller under the sun, raging about how Pioneer has taken over the market from top to bottom, looking back at all the indie/modular stuff that was big 10-15 years ago, but now you can't buy it any more, in fact you can't buy anything small any more, except for things that are locked into Apple device ecosystems, and even worse into Spotify and Tidal and all those other shitty subscription services, and then i decided i wanted to vomit and the sun was rising and i didn't buy anything.
My principles keep getting in the way of me potentially just having a good time.
So today i went on a bike ride to clear my head, but it's not really clear, is it?
I mentally created lists of hobbies i have, had or want to have that i should just allocate some fucking money to and be done with it.
Current hobbies i do daily or weekly:
- watching TV shows (sci-fi/fiction)
- following pro wrestling
- playing computer games
- reading news/blogs/etc
- writing journal entries
- memorizing vocabulary from foreign languages
- cycling around the place
Note that aside from cycling, which i can do in Taiwan using public bicycles that i do not own, all of these things are done on my computer and phone.
Current hobbies i do monthly to quarterly, but i'd like to do more:
- buying and listening to music
- going out dancing
Hobbies i used to do and i miss:
- hiking
- writing music
- reading books (sci-fi/non-fiction)
- improving speaking and listening skills in foreign languages
- exploring places and countries i never visited before
- playing harmonica
Hobbies i imagine one day i would like to have:
- piloting FPV drones
- sea kayaking or some other kind of self-propelled water transport
- working out, if hiking/cycling/dancing isn't enough to fend off old age
- contributing to open source software, if that wasn't already my day job
- becoming active in politics, in particular migrants rights, international relations, global development
Hobbies i had once upon a time but probably will never do again:
- basketball
- boxing
- playing guitar
- playing hand drums
- fashion/make-up
- cocktails/mixology
- hanging out in dive bars
- getting high
I don't count cooking as a hobby because it's like sleeping: if you can't do it, your life will suck by default.
Like, looking at this list... There's not that many different things. It doesn't include the things i thought once upon a time would be cool but i already put on the not fucking likely list, like learning how to skateboard or flying in a helicopter or sailing around the world or riding freight trains across America. There's no "making", no woodwork, no metalwork, no needlework, no soldering irons, no gardening, no painting. The bar is very low. So why can't i just let myself go? I mean, and then the other thing, if i do decide to start noodling around with synths or DJ gear or whatever, i need to not beat myself up when the gear inevitably just sits there gathering dust because i am so zonked after work that the only thing i can do is collapse in front of the boob tube. And then get sidetracked into thinking about all the things i could or would perhaps do if i didn't have to work, and then do none of things, not even attempt it.
Fuck! I need a sabbatical.
My eyes hurt. My brain hurts. I am going to make dinner.
What are your hobbies?
The trigger for the current debacle is - you guessed it - buying stuff. Or more to the point, NOT buying stuff, because that's what the end result usually is.
There was a period in my life where i did not give much of a shit about my bipolar disorder diagnosis, in fact i just kinda reveled in making poor decisions because i thought it made me more interesting, or more lovable, or maybe i didn't really think about it at all, i just did it. One of the poor decisions of the early days was to rack up a large credit card debt buying all kinds of random stuff, mostly music-related. The abject misery i felt about being trapped with that debt eventually led me to pay it off, and pay off my student loans too, and then vow to never, ever again in my life go into debt, for anything. I'd rather be homeless. At least i'd be free.
But that doesn't mean my mind stopped thinking about buying things. It just meant that if i ever did buy anything, i immediately felt sick to the stomach and eventually depressed afterwards. So it turns out that one treatment for hypomanic behavior is having an overwhelming dread of ever being in debt, i.e. beholden to someone else. Freedom is everything to me, absolutely everything.
It can get a little ridiculous, though, like the long period where i did not have a toaster even though i rather liked eating toast, because the grill was right there and i could toast bread that way, if a little less conveniently. My friends thought i was crazy, and i think at some point along the way an ex did persuade me to get a toaster, and i felt guilty every time i used it. (Have i owned a toaster in the last 10 years? Of course fucking not. Fortunately in Europe the bread is good enough you don't need to toast it and in Asia it's bad enough to not even bother with bread at all.)
I also do not own a fork, because if you need a fork to eat, you failed in the kitchen. Cut it smaller before you throw it in the pan. Use a spoon or chopsticks. Et cetera.
Anyway, normally this doesn't really affect my life, because i have figured out the things that are a necessity to me, and i begrudgingly spend the money when i need those things. For example: computer and input devices. Phone. Wok/frypan. Bowl. Underwear. Well, actually not underwear, but i already did the clothes topic to death a couple months back.
When it does affect me is when i think about hobbies. Most hobbies require a purchase. And that's when my brain goes nuts, because i have this corner of my mind that doesn't want to spend anything at all, and another corner of my mind that says if i do buy something it better be the smallest, cheapest, simplest version of the thing that will satisfy my requirements, so if i ever need to move i don't have a mountain of useless shit to deal with.
Because, let's be honest, it will be useless. Except for people who are mad passionate about their hobby to the point it becomes essentially a job, most people end up with piles and piles of junk that they bought once upon a time in the hope that it would fun, or inspiring, or this, or that, and then maybe they use it once a month or once a year or never and presumably spend the rest of their lives with that voice permanently in their ear whispering "meanwhile, kids are starving in Africa". (Please update the voice of conscience to the era and context of your youth, this one was the middle-class mantra in First World countries during the 1980s.)
And i know this, because i remember when i bought all those musical instruments, and i spent years noodling around with them, and it was a fun enough diversion, but in the end did i keep it up? No. So every time i think to myself "maybe i should buy a piece of gear", i stay up till 4am clicking around websites looking at every single bit of gear in existence, trying to find the perfect thing that would do exactly what i need and not make me feel like shit for buying it, and then i don't buy it, and here i am again, still not fucking writing any music. I suppose i should see that as a success, because the end result is exactly the same, except maybe i saved $150 or $250. Because this is the level i pare my expectations down to. You think i'm fretting this hard over top-of-the-line stuff? Ho ho ho.
Perhaps you are still reading this, and you're thinking to yourself "dear lord, amw, you are a fucking nutjob, pull yourself together and just buy something nice, who cares if you only use it for a month?" And you would be right. I know that this thought process is nonsensical. That's what makes it even more frustrating. I can't stop my brain from going down that fucking spiral, and then because i stayed up all night stressing about it, i get sleep-deprived, which makes my thought process the next day even more compromised, and it ends up in that dark mania that kicks my ass back to depressionville.
If i write about it on LiveJournal, will that nip it in the bud?
Here's the thing. The two things, actually, from this week.
Thing number one. I spend a huge amount of time in front of a screen all day. Literally the entire day at work, and every single moment of my waking hours aside from cycling to work and cooking dinner. I consume everything through my computer or my phone. And i don't feel bad about it, because i like to do it. Watching TV shows is a hobby of mine. Reading the news is a hobby of mine. But earlier this week i had this great idea, seeing as i spend at least 2-3 hours a day reading plain text (blogs, newspapers, wiki), why not buy an eink device that is just as convenient as my phone or tablet, but minus the eye strain? Well that spiraled into looking up every single eink device that exists, debating the merits of jailbreaking a closed device over using an Android device, different versions of Android, Android with Gapps vs no Gapps, bla bla bla and in the end i bought nothing because i didn't want to spend all my time faffing around with de-DRMing my Kindle books, or rooting the fucking Android, or whatever other nerd shit that i do in my day job, and i felt guilty paying more for a device that might avoid the faff, just in case it isn't perfect and then i don't use it.
Thing number two. I started playing a game last night and the music in the game was terrible. It was an indie urban fantasy/detective horror type game, which is a genre that often features corny Halloween Nintendo music that makes me want to stab a fork in my ear. (Fortunately i don't own any forks.) So i turned the music off and started playing tracks from my own collection as background music. And (here's the reason why i don't listen to music very often), i was so distracted by how great the music was, i Alt-Tabbed away from the game and looked at the tracks, and then got the idea to buy a DJ controller so i could more actively listen to and enjoy my music. Well, you know what happened next. Up all night looking at every DJ controller under the sun, raging about how Pioneer has taken over the market from top to bottom, looking back at all the indie/modular stuff that was big 10-15 years ago, but now you can't buy it any more, in fact you can't buy anything small any more, except for things that are locked into Apple device ecosystems, and even worse into Spotify and Tidal and all those other shitty subscription services, and then i decided i wanted to vomit and the sun was rising and i didn't buy anything.
My principles keep getting in the way of me potentially just having a good time.
So today i went on a bike ride to clear my head, but it's not really clear, is it?
I mentally created lists of hobbies i have, had or want to have that i should just allocate some fucking money to and be done with it.
Current hobbies i do daily or weekly:
- watching TV shows (sci-fi/fiction)
- following pro wrestling
- playing computer games
- reading news/blogs/etc
- writing journal entries
- memorizing vocabulary from foreign languages
- cycling around the place
Note that aside from cycling, which i can do in Taiwan using public bicycles that i do not own, all of these things are done on my computer and phone.
Current hobbies i do monthly to quarterly, but i'd like to do more:
- buying and listening to music
- going out dancing
Hobbies i used to do and i miss:
- hiking
- writing music
- reading books (sci-fi/non-fiction)
- improving speaking and listening skills in foreign languages
- exploring places and countries i never visited before
- playing harmonica
Hobbies i imagine one day i would like to have:
- piloting FPV drones
- sea kayaking or some other kind of self-propelled water transport
- working out, if hiking/cycling/dancing isn't enough to fend off old age
- contributing to open source software, if that wasn't already my day job
- becoming active in politics, in particular migrants rights, international relations, global development
Hobbies i had once upon a time but probably will never do again:
- basketball
- boxing
- playing guitar
- playing hand drums
- fashion/make-up
- cocktails/mixology
- hanging out in dive bars
- getting high
I don't count cooking as a hobby because it's like sleeping: if you can't do it, your life will suck by default.
Like, looking at this list... There's not that many different things. It doesn't include the things i thought once upon a time would be cool but i already put on the not fucking likely list, like learning how to skateboard or flying in a helicopter or sailing around the world or riding freight trains across America. There's no "making", no woodwork, no metalwork, no needlework, no soldering irons, no gardening, no painting. The bar is very low. So why can't i just let myself go? I mean, and then the other thing, if i do decide to start noodling around with synths or DJ gear or whatever, i need to not beat myself up when the gear inevitably just sits there gathering dust because i am so zonked after work that the only thing i can do is collapse in front of the boob tube. And then get sidetracked into thinking about all the things i could or would perhaps do if i didn't have to work, and then do none of things, not even attempt it.
Fuck! I need a sabbatical.
My eyes hurt. My brain hurts. I am going to make dinner.
What are your hobbies?