Mindless hobby where you can "zone out".

[jakebarnes]

1 hour ago, dominattorney said:

I'll do another plus 1 for weightlifting. Though I don't usually zone out doing it. It's nice because it gives me something else to focus on besides multitasking several things at once. It gives me hours of clarity afterward. 

Also reading. Specifically dense and challenging texts on philosophy or physics. Same reason. Requires inte se focus on a single thing for a sustained duration. 

Think you and I are in the same vein.  I try to rotate popcorn books (quick reads, minimal thought), literature, and then some sort of think piece (usually revisiting a lot of the philosophy texts from college and law school). Sort of a nice rotation for different levels of activation on the reading front. 

[dominattorney]

45 minutes ago, jakebarnes said:

Think you and I are in the same vein.  I try to rotate popcorn books (quick reads, minimal thought), literature, and then some sort of think piece (usually revisiting a lot of the philosophy texts from college and law school). Sort of a nice rotation for different levels of activation on the reading front. 

Precisely. Zoning out is good but I think recharging is also important. 

[Hammer Smokin']

recharging is why I fish. 

zoning out is to turn off my brain. 

for those who are weightlifters, it's like letting your muscles heal after a work out. makes your muscles stronger in the end. 

doing the same for your brain can produce the same results. 

[01Vert]

 For me the only “slow speed” hobby I have is Cigars.   Smoking forces me to take at least an hour and disconnect from switching onto another thing while I am occupied.  Prior to my retirement my job kept me working all the time when not at work.  Reading and answering emails, remote login to our system to check things that I had set in motion, monitoring of activities while I wasn’t there etc.   33 years and I am finally out and although still working for the agency it is in a part time, diminished role which I actually enjoy   

 

With cigars I can sit outside, enjoy the ritual and put on a video or some show and that disconnects me enough to actually slow down and enjoy.   
 

  I second reloading as a 100% hobby, some of the time.  I enjoy the technical and mechanical aspects of it and certain parts (case prep) can be a zone out activity while the actual loading of cartridges is certainly not.  
 

  

[ChangBang]

2 hours ago, Hammer Smokin' said:

you nailed it!

well done. 

I'm impressed. 

(seriously impressed)

Haha it's a game I still play today!  And technically it can be done online, but been years since I've done that! 

Guess I never answered - mindless hobbies are cigars, smoking bbq, slower video games, and tv/movies.  Things that aren't too active where I can have a cigar and drink without constantly having to stress about anything.

[Hammer Smokin']

1 hour ago, ChangBang said:

Haha it's a game I still play today!  And technically it can be done online, but been years since I've done that! 

Guess I never answered - mindless hobbies are cigars, smoking bbq, slower video games, and tv/movies.  Things that aren't too active where I can have a cigar and drink without constantly having to stress about anything.

I saw that it was played online...my bro showed me some gaming site (twitch I think) where tons of people were streaming themselves playing this game from 1999. Most of the players looked like they were born after the game was developed. 

That's cool with me!

[LLC]

6 hours ago, Chibearsv said:

Watching movies or TV is probably the most mindless activity for me.  It's hard for me to turn it all off.  Usually my mind is just going non-stop until I turn on the tv and pass out.  

Similar for me. With the very long hours, lots of travel and lots of stress/pressure it’s hard to wind down. 
A cigar while watching sports is about as close as I’ll get to zoning out. Of course I can’t just watch the TV or iPad, I’ll also be going through this forum or news or something else at the same time because I can’t just watch the sports. 

[ha_banos]

A chipper WOD soon means mind is not able to wonder. Especially if box jumps are involved. Lose focus there and you pay for it in blood. This one's great but no way I can do it at prescribed weights.

Cigar by water is also able to zone me out. Odd that.

 

 

[Rhinoww]

23 hours ago, cgoodrich said:

For me, it’s wood working. 99% hand tools; old hand planes, chisels & gouges, hand saws, marking gauges, spokeshaves, etc. I don’t make much, but completely zone out when I do. It also led me to buy and restore old tools. Love working with my hands.

100% this. 
 

I have stepped away from my shop for a bit once I became a shop for others needs - it’s my hobby and my timeline. 
 

Lots of deep rabbit holes here. Tools with and without tails, tools to rehab and of course chasing for a Sawyer who has some cut logs in the rough thickness/dimensions you want. 
 

there was a year or so my son wanted to go to flea markets to look for old gaming devices. I started to collect old hand saws, rehab and sharpen them. That’s a deep rabbit hole. Starts w a $5 rusty handsaw that the seller doesn’t know is as old as it is. You wanna talk mindless precision- sharpen a 100 year old saw by hand w a file 😂

[MickVanWinkle]

I may be the opposite in terms of my needs for recharging.  A cigar with the dogs on my back patio is my only real zone out time.

I find much of my personal and work life requires such a juggling of responsibilities that my down time is more of a hyper focused / meditative tasks that allow me to just be completely in one place - cross-fit style workouts, bit of woodworking, and home improvement projects are what get my juices going

[TobaccoRoad]

8 hours ago, PigFish said:

A hobby not for people who zone out!

 

Fair point. I spend hours totally focused on my task at hand with no thoughts at all about anything else. Zoned out may not be the correct terminology but it's been my refuge from the world for over 40 years now.  

[Rhinoww]

I should add that I also really enjoy skeet and sporting clays. Easy enough to combine w a cigar. 

[Greenhorn2]

You want a mindless hobby where you can zone out? Smoke those left handed cigarettes, you'll be mindless and zoned out in a skippy minute!🤪

[PigFish]

15 hours ago, TobaccoRoad said:

Fair point. I spend hours totally focused on my task at hand with no thoughts at all about anything else. Zoned out may not be the correct terminology but it's been my refuge from the world for over 40 years now.  

Me too. Since I was 14. Several years it was 3K 38-Super a week for IPSC practice. It is a dedicated hobby!!! No time to do it today. Wish I did!

It was the thought of a squib load while competing that got making the comment. Stay safe!

[Bijan]

I usually go OCD on most hobbies, but manage to achieve some small level of balance in the end.

I'm 90% there with my audio setup. Which was more or less in storage while my son was a terrible 2.

[Hammer Smokin']

curious Bijan, what type of music do you enjoy that tests (and shows) the breadth of your acoustics? jazz? classical? opera? death metal

I've always found it interesting to hear what music drives an audiophile. 

(plus, I love talking music, lol)

[Bijan]

29 minutes ago, Hammer Smokin' said:

curious Bijan, what type of music do you enjoy that tests (and shows) the breadth of your acoustics? jazz? classical? opera? death metal

I've always found it interesting to hear what music drives an audiophile. 

(plus, I love talking music, lol)

For vinyl popular music is the way to go, due to somewhat compressed range matching the acoustic range of vinyl record (20-30db, but ideally 10db or less).

On this front I have Childish Gambino's because the internet which is really well mastered, it sounds pretty close to the CD/digital which is pretty impressive given the amount of bass.

I also am listening to Beck's Midnite Vultures (from 1999, 2000 vinyl release). Which apparently is now worth $500-$1,000! Which I didn't realize. Though there's supposedly a vinyl re-release planned, soon-ish. (Edit: at the time I thought spending $20+ Canadian for the record was foolish...).

Jazz is mostly good. Everything from mid 1950s on sounds great, except for lack of bass.

Classical is mostly kind of sad... due to the limited dynamic range of the medium, unless you listen to the subset of classical music that has limited dynamic range. Even with CDs/digital this is a problem, which is simply unbearable with an analog input (other than maybe high-speed reel to reel).

So yeah mostly variations on pop/rock/punk/hip-hop/electronic.

I'm playing around with digitally recording the records to files, so that I can listen more conveniently (due to above-mentioned 3 year old the bulk of my records are in a locked room in the basement) and so that I can gauge the state of my records.

Also a few 1925-1950 78 RPM records, but those have really terrible sound quality.

[Hammer Smokin']

Just throw on Let's Dance by Bowie and crank'er up to 11. 😀

Appreciate the response. I enjoy listening to audiophiles systems because I have an ear for music and sound quality. But I have a couple friends that fell to the dark side in the early '00s that spent tens of thousands on stereo gear. I was afraid. So I never got into it. 

But absolutely love listening to other peoples gear. There isn't much music out there that I don't like (or at least appreciate) so I always tell someone "turn on your favourite". I've been fortunate enough to listen to some fantastic setups. 

[Bijan]

14 minutes ago, Hammer Smokin' said:

Just throw on Let's Dance by Bowie and crank'er up to 11. 😀

Found my copy 🙂

15 minutes ago, Hammer Smokin' said:

But I have a couple friends that fell to the dark side in the early '00s that spent tens of thousands on stereo gear. I was afraid. So I never got into it. 

I was lucky I never went too crazy. It helps that I started out as a student, and also realized you get %90 of the sound out of the first $1,000 (or maybe $2k these days).

[Bijan]

As an example I have a NAD 326 amp/receiver. 

But the JVC RX-150 (at the bottom) from 1986 that I got at a garage sale for $20 (it also came with speakers that were usable at the time), is about as good when driving 2 pairs of speakers. And as a plus has 2-way speaker switch built in, fm built in and phono preamp. Though less inputs.

[Nevrknow]

8 minutes ago, Bijan said:

As an example I have a NAD 326 amp/receiver. 

But the JVC RX-150 (at the bottom) from 1986 that I got at a garage sale for $10 (it also came with speakers that were usable at the time), is about as good when driving 2 pairs of speakers. And as a plus has 2-way speaker switch built in, fm built in and phono preamp. Though less inputs.

Love the JVC story. Reminds me of us broke ass high school kids with car systems blowing away those kids with $$$$$ sound systems on the weekends with our $$$ sound systems with sometimes used equipment. I should add, 1 of my buddies Dad was some kind of genius sound engineer. Trying to teach us how high priced does not equal better all the time. His home setup? Kiss a sound studio or concert hall good bye. DAMN!   LOL

[DOYLE]

I spend all day dealing with logistics, schedules, managing personalities, and putting out fires involving all of them. I definitely need to turn off the brain, shut down, and disconnect on weekends. I usually do so by hiking, watching dumb comedies and action movies that don't require much brain power to watch, playing some video games where I can zone out by zoning in and focusing on the game, and sometimes sitting in the bathtub with a candle, some music, a drink and a cigar.

 

And no, that's not actually me.

[BossHogg]

The zoning out hobby for me is cigars. Love to sit back and enjoy the outdoors with one and a nice drink. Especially if at a cabin on the lake 😊 or reading about them on great forums like this one. Then of course there is me just staring into the humi quite often as well 😄 

I also enjoy camping, hiking, video games, and motorcycle riding.... no zoning out on the last one though 😆 

[Hammer Smokin']

staring off into the campfire with an esplendidos and a lagavulin 16 is probably my favorite thing on earth. 

Is it June yet

[Greenhorn2]

1 hour ago, Hammer Smokin' said:

staring off into the campfire with an esplendidos and a lagavulin 16 is probably my favorite thing on earth. 

Is it June yet

Slide your chair a little closer to the campfire and chunk the wood to it.