Hobbies as distraction

Lounge
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What are some of the hobbies you use as distraction from your mental health problems/worries?
Not being good with my hands I am not into arts and crafts but I believe many of you are.
My main hobby at the moment is the dna side of genealogy. I have been tested and recently persuaded my father to take a test. As suspected my dna ancestry is predominantly North/West European and strongly British . Via various sites though I get unusual minority admixture ie one site gives 1% North African(family tree dna) ,another site 2% Native American9(geno2) and different downloads to dna.land give 1,1% ambiguous Native American,1.2% Amazonian , 4% Finnish and from 9-10% Mediterranean islander (Cyprus,Malta, and Sicily). It is likely most of the small admixture,especially that which is 2% or under, is ā€˜noiseā€™

Well thatā€™s enough boring everyone but please tell us your hobbies whether it be knitting,sky diving, horse riding, stamp collecting or whatever.

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Iā€™ve really started to read recently. The meds Iā€™m on have really helped clear my mind and Iā€™ve been able to focus. I have a music production software that I plan on using to create some electronic tunes.

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I wish I could get down to reading but (a) fiction books are one dimensional as I canā€™t mentally visualise characters and scenes and (b) I struggle to focus on a book for the necessary time to get through it.
@kropotkin what books are you reading and who will be your inspiration for the electronic music ?

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Right now Iā€™m reading a Ludwig on mises book. Itā€™s an economic book and a Nietzsche book. Metrik is my inspiration as I hope to make some drum and bass music

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I read this as ā€œHobbitsā€, which could be very distracting.

My favorites right now are ruthlessly yanking vines out of my garden, Legos, and reading.

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Let those vines know who is boss, rhubes. Make a public example of the rebel vines.

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Iā€™ve been reading a lot recently which has been nice because I couldnā€™t focus for so long.

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Mate, you donā€™t even know. Itā€™s Sleeping Beautyā€™s castle over here.

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Not my kind of music, but youā€™re obviously talented with the music and video.

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What do you make with the Legos? I had Lego as a child but it was a waste on me as I could never make anything. Just randomly put Lego bricks together,

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I used to write poetry of a sort but creative inspiration dried up.

Here are a few.

1975

I remember nineteen seventy five
chasing emptiness just to stay alive
hopes shattered and broken,
words of salvation never spoken,
I remember blame and then more blame
no panacea to soothe all the pain
I remember parental warfare
I remember no one was there
I remember the post mortems theyā€™d hold
so much to say but emotionally cold
I remember confidence shattered day after day
Nineteen seventy five when blue turned to grey

The American dream

The American dream-fat ladies on therapists couchs
health food obsession meets psychologistā€™s candy
The American dream- guns for sale executions to
follow,
Your right to shoot and your punishment to die,
The American dream- personal neurosis,
collective self assurance,
anti abortionist gas chamber caressing.

The American dream-momā€™s apple pie
classrooms of children waiting to die
The American dream- wholesome and clean
liberal thoughts and reactionary deeds
The American dream-bizzare and mundane
continuous movie for the normally insane

Desolation cuts deeper than the knife

No pills this dysphoria can cure
this lifeā€™ll destroy me for sure
nearly 49 reaching for a sight of ten
needing a glimpse of me now and again

Looking to trust,no trust to find
paranoia gnawing at my mind
disjointed days,emotional haze
itā€™s always been this way

Wish i was free,born again
Wish for sunshine feel the rain
angry tells me iā€™m alive
desolation cuts deeper than the knife

Falling star

I saw despair in a black bag
Felt it,touched it and threw it away
But once again it stood beside me
Crying out for a taste of anguish

I laughed,it was a joke,a fantasy
Then i looked down on the floor
The room shook and the fragments sharp
Tumbled on to the once golden floor

I bent down to pick up the pieces
And like a rusty needle they went through me
The earth went dark,oh so dark
I tried to smile,a vacant pit.

Laughter,what is laughter?
I cannot tell,it avoids me
There is just the darkness
And the broken fragments on the floor

(A poem written when i was 15 in 1972)

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Happy birthday @huckfinn !!!

My hobbies are movies, video games and sport. I love football

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Oh, I feel Iā€™m about to reveal far too much geekiness here. I like to get Lego sets - Star Wars, Harry Potter, Iā€™m really enjoying the Elves Legos - and put them together per the instructions, then dream up things I feel are left out and build them.

Iā€™m working on a treehouse for one of the Elves characters right now, and also plotting out how to build #12 Grimmauld Place, a location from Harry Potter.

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I read elves as elvis and got excited that theres elvis lego. Bummer :frowning:

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There are eggs that hatch dragons, though, beautiful sparkling eggs with dragons inside!

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I wish I could get into video games but they all tend to need far quicker reactions than I have. The only game I regularly played until they radically revamped it, and I just couldnā€™t adjust to it, was the football manager series. I never got my team to the top of the table or won any cups but it was quite good fun.

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Happy Birthday @HuckFinn I hope you had a special day! :birthday:

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Happy birthdayyyy!!!

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Yeah i dont have the reaction for video games anymore either. I just play turn based games like civilization 5. Games i can relax playing.