I'm very good at relaxing and sleeping is my superpower and yet I relate strongly to this sense of climate guilt and the loud tick-tick-ticking on a different kind of doomsday clock than the one originally created for the nuclear holocaust we were going to bring down on our own heads.
One sporadically time-intensive new hobby thanks to the pandemic is painting rocks and hiding them in the woods in the big park near my house. To be clear I am no kind of artist so these are pretty simple, although I did take a class in dot painting and can turn out some cute little versions of mandalas. It makes me happy to go on another walk after hiding one and see that someone picked it up.
I also spend some evenings with the TV and Zentangle, which is a soothing and meditative practice of drawing repetitive patterns/shapes that turn into amazingly complex pieces. It's very small scale (on a 3x3 square or round although I ventured into the 4x4 territory because that paper was on sale at the tiny little locally owned art supply place I go to). I saw a book on this years ago on a vacation, didn't get it then, and for some reason kept thinking about it every so often. The pandemic basically made say to myself "why the hell not?" and I ordered the kit from the creators.
I think "why the hell not?" is a good motto for all of this. WTHN do something about climate, WTHN do something soothing or meditative or whateverish.
I found this post fascinating, but not because I can relate. I don’t find it hard to relax; I find it too easy! If anything, I struggle with lack of ambition.
For a few years I went all in on the “time-intensive hobby” of crochet. I found it relaxing, and a fun way to connect with my mom and some of my friends who are much more accomplished in the fibre arts. I did improve a bit, but never got very good, and one day I was overcome with guilt at the amount of time and money I’d spent, considering the lack of truly impressive end products to “show” for it.
I haven’t picked it up since. So I totally get where you are coming from with piano, even if I started out from a totally different place :)
On a different note (see what I did there?) a meditation along these lines by Antonia Malchik https://antonia.substack.com/p/what-is-the-point-of-anything-but?s=r.
I'm very good at relaxing and sleeping is my superpower and yet I relate strongly to this sense of climate guilt and the loud tick-tick-ticking on a different kind of doomsday clock than the one originally created for the nuclear holocaust we were going to bring down on our own heads.
One sporadically time-intensive new hobby thanks to the pandemic is painting rocks and hiding them in the woods in the big park near my house. To be clear I am no kind of artist so these are pretty simple, although I did take a class in dot painting and can turn out some cute little versions of mandalas. It makes me happy to go on another walk after hiding one and see that someone picked it up.
I also spend some evenings with the TV and Zentangle, which is a soothing and meditative practice of drawing repetitive patterns/shapes that turn into amazingly complex pieces. It's very small scale (on a 3x3 square or round although I ventured into the 4x4 territory because that paper was on sale at the tiny little locally owned art supply place I go to). I saw a book on this years ago on a vacation, didn't get it then, and for some reason kept thinking about it every so often. The pandemic basically made say to myself "why the hell not?" and I ordered the kit from the creators.
I think "why the hell not?" is a good motto for all of this. WTHN do something about climate, WTHN do something soothing or meditative or whateverish.
I found this post fascinating, but not because I can relate. I don’t find it hard to relax; I find it too easy! If anything, I struggle with lack of ambition.
For a few years I went all in on the “time-intensive hobby” of crochet. I found it relaxing, and a fun way to connect with my mom and some of my friends who are much more accomplished in the fibre arts. I did improve a bit, but never got very good, and one day I was overcome with guilt at the amount of time and money I’d spent, considering the lack of truly impressive end products to “show” for it.
I haven’t picked it up since. So I totally get where you are coming from with piano, even if I started out from a totally different place :)
Well now I learned something new and I love this This is so amazing