*insert title here*

“Go to sleep, sweetheart. Pray for brains. “ -Dorothy

[sci-fi-gifs]

DOCTOR WHO (2005—) — “Turn Left” (4.11)

[womenintheirwebs-archived]

the one problem i have with people my age and younger is that a lot of us do not have hands on hobbies. like i have spoken to so many people my age who go to work, go to school and then fuck around on their phone/computer for hours and then ???????? like no wonder ur depressed and have low confidence in urself. u need to get ur hands on something, feed those dopamine receptors! learn how to play guitar, garden, scrapbook, fucking make model trains. i don’t give a shit, MAKE SOMETHING!!

it feels better than drugs when i finish making a thing—and then show it off or gift it.

and then so people my age say to me ‘well—i can’t draw/paint/knit/etc. like you can. my stuff would be terrible.’ yeah, well duh—a part of developing skill is sucking at something and then practicing it over and over and over again until you suck less. u’ll have a hard time feeling lonely or bored when you can’t stop thinking abt a technique you want to try or something you want to make for someone else. making things has SAVED MY LIFE. it gave me a reason to keep living day after day when i wanted to die.

making things have improved my generational relationships (when i worked for the newspaper i would talk to customers abt jamming recipes or cross-stitch, one of my grandmas always gives me pattern books and tell me abt when she knitted things for mom, my other grandma is giving me a wedding quilt that HER grandma gave her 50 years ago because she knows i will appreciate it). it also got me likeminded friends who also make things.

take a ceramics class! pick up water colors, bake cakes! learn to work on cars! make soap. DO SOMETHING THAT DOESN’T INVOLVE STARING AT A SCREEN.

[bandomfandombeyond]

Hobbies cost money, Helen.

[royalharkinian]

Do you eat? Then you can have a hobby.

Can you see green outside? Can you get some dirt? Then you can have a hobby.

Do you have a pen and paper? Hobby.

Something with a keyboard? Hobby.

The ability to walk? Hobby.

Get creative and don't be a pessimist is step one Barabra. 

[dronwen]

Acting like it’s easy or simple to have an ENJOYABLE hobby on zero budget is a puerile view that shifts the blame for the unhappiness of people trapped at the bottom of a dehumanizing, vicious system. Its possible of course. There are people who are into things that can be done cheaply, and that’s great! But not everyone takes joy in the things that can be done on a budget of next to nothing, and we shouldn’t EXPECT people to!

[appropriately-inappropriate]

Might as well lie down and die then! God forbid anyone try to better themselves.

Have two feet and a heartbeat? Go for a fucking walk, do some pushups, volunteer to play with shelter dogs.

Have two hands and a heartbeat? Sketch. Napkins are free, steal a pen from your job, voila! Picasso.

Have one hand and a pacemaker? Might I recommend composing music on garage band?

The Y offers low-cost social classes. There are also coding classes online. Turn a hobby into a job!

Your computer has a microphone. Start making podcasts.

Crafty and bedbound? Try watercolours; they’re available at the dollar store.

Granola hippy? Get a towel, find a floor, queue up a yoga tutorial on YouTube. Namaste.

Garden witch? Dollarstore pot and a small bag of potting mix. Take your old head of lettuce, keep the bottom wet for a day, put butt of lettuce into dirt. Voila. Salad. Mint works well and is likewise indestructible.

Not into sports? Read books online. There are thousands of classic titles available. Internet got cut off? Library. Illiterate? Perfect — there’s your project. Or: books on tape, available at your local library, for free.

Look — I don’t take joy in my commute and I wish I had a helicopter to take me everywhere I wanted to go. But whining about my misfortune doesn’t solve my problem, and neither does this defeatist attitude.

If you have the time and tech to scroll this website, you have the time to develop a fulfilling hobby.

Anything else is just wallowing in your own misery because the alternative — trying and failing — is too daunting.

Oh well. Life is daunting. So either get it done or get it over with; it does not get any easier.

[libertarirynn-deactivated202006]

Lmao y’all are really over here assmad at the very idea of bettering your lives in any way. It’s kind of pathetic.

[sandersstudies]

“Have you guys considered doing something worthwhile that makes you happy? :) ”

Tumblr: no, and I will not, and you’re ableist and classist for suggesting such a thing fuck off

[sewickedthread]

Knot-tying & macramé - you can often find yarn at thrift shops or dollar stores (not always but with some frequency).

YouTube tutorials, websites, and learn to mend your clothes. Some outlay for thread, needles, scissors, and maybe patches and buttons. But spending less money buying new clothes..

Dollar stores often have coloring books & pencils, too. Go wild. Color the sun blue, grass purple, & trees red. Go outside the lines. Add stuff to the picture.

Sharpie pen & rounded rocks - draw pictures and happy messages and give them to people or leave them to be found.

Cotton string, paint, & paper. Dip string in paint & drape it on paper. Repeat with other colors. It doesn’t matter if your hand shakes, in fact it’s better.

Some craft places & senior centers & community centers have classes for free or for the cost of the materials. Try the craft with just enough materials for 1 project, instead of investing lots of money.

Look up crafts aimed at kids. Those are often simple with inexpensive materials. Get your foot in the creativity door.

[thekickassknitter]

I will teach other depressed fuckers to knit because nothing defeats nihilistic fatalism like wearing the sweater you made from scratch!

[olderthannetfic]

Seriously.

I sympathize with it feeling impossible to get started and with some versions of a hobby being out of reach, but that’s not every version.

If you like plants other than the aforementioned mint, you can often take cuttings from ones beside the road somewhere and get them to grow roots in a glass of water before transplanting them to dirt.

If you like fiber crafts, you can often find odd assortments of yarn for cheap. If you have a local Buy Nothing or other neighborhood giveaway thing, crafters are often decluttering their stashes and giving away nice quality stuff, just in small amounts that you couldn’t make a whole project out of. Maybe you can’t get every size and variety of tool, but a lot of people would be happy to pass on a single pair of needles. I’ve been shocked at how much interesting stuff people just put on the sidewalk because they’re overwhelmed by stuff.

[darkshrimpemotions]

Also like. I get it. The world is bleak sometimes and maybe you have it really rough right now and everything feels pointless. No one is suggesting that a hands-on hobby is going to save the world or cure your depression or solve all your problems. But my god, what’s the alternative? I can’t fix everything, so I deny myself any small scrap of joy? If it doesn’t solve all my problems it’s not worth doing at all? I can’t be the best and have all the most elaborate tools so I might as well not even bother?

Let me tell you, if that’s your approach to life, you’re in for a miserable time.

Know what I did last summer? I impulse bought a bottle of bubble solution at CVS for $1.99. And whenever I had a rough day I went outside and sat down and blew bubbles for a few minutes, experimenting with different ways to hold or dip the wand or get air through it to make different types of bubbles. Trying to make bigger bubbles, or recapture bubbles on the wand without popping them.

It was so small. So silly. It didn’t make anything lasting. It didn’t necessarily build any marketable skills. It wasn’t the hobby I would choose if I had unlimited space and resources. I had nothing to show for it at the end of the day but a slightly less full bottle of bubble solution.

But my god, did I feel better each and every time. For $1.99, an entire summer of time set aside to myself every other day or so, out in the sun, doing something that brought me joy. It was SO SMALL. But it made such a huge difference.

[rachandroll]

#sometimes wrenching yourself out of a shitty life is doing small things one step at a time

[akhuna]

You all know singing is free, right?

[jamiebythesea]

Writing is also basically free

[maria-taiwin]

This panel was really peak comedy

[everythingfox]

[undercovertacobell]

So there's only one channel in this motel,

This morning while I was getting ready I was watching Sesame Street.

They were doing this bit where some clown was trying to wash his hands but kept washing his feet or his elbows and Elmo would go, “no mister noodle, your HANDS!” and all the tv kids would laugh.

Around the fourth or fifth time he couldn’t find his hands, I heard a grown man yell from somewhere else in the motel, “GODDAMMIT, MR. NOODLE.”

[robbidybobbin]

LITERALLY MY FAVORITE STORY ON ALL OF TUMBLR.

[cigardoesart]

DO YOU REMEMBER? THE 21ST NIGHT OF SEPTEMBER?

Gif I made for this same date last year, posting it here now!

[moonsinfonia]

this is exactly what happened at the cereal convention.

[unfortunate-waitress]

If i’m telling you, “this is a hot plate.” But I make no effort to put it down, i’m internally yelling at you to move your shit. Your phone. Your keys. Your bread. Whatever is directly in front of you is from that point on is now classified as your shit. The shit you are suddenly responsibly for and I am burning my hands for. Move your shit. I’m not going to move it for you.

Shoutout to the people who see me approaching with their food and immediately start clearing the way for me. You are the real MVPs. You know what’s up. You understand.

As for everybody else. Move. Your. Shit.

[hello-its-an-aj]

Me

[unfortunate-waitress]

We see that and we respect the fuck out of you. Thank you.

[bakedbananners]

I love when dogs and cats just let you pat the shit out of them and they enjoy it so much. Like yeah dude real quick I just need to play you like a bongo and they’re like god yes I’ve been waiting for someone to play me like a bongo

[dinuguan]

[untitledplacebo]

A 1 carrot ring

[justinpie]

Blocked

[obiwan]

#Growth

[lucydacusgirl]

People hacking their lungs out around you and then being like ‘don’t worry it’s not covid’ like girl I don’t want whatever the fuck else it is you’ve got either!!

[somanyjacks]

I don't know who needs to hear this, but if the phrase "self care" doesn't resonate with you, try calling it "system maintenance" and see if that clicks.

[wormsslime]

[fallingivy]

I told a kid in my class the other day that it was going to be the year of the tiger! This kid is a kindergartner, five years old.

Usually there’s some interest when I bring this up, but this kid sort of sat with that for a couple minutes, expression settling into a thousand yard stare. Just as I was wondering if something was wrong, he looked at me with his haunted eyes and asked, in a tone of resignation: “When are the tigers coming?”

I had to quickly reassure him that the year of the tiger was like…an animal assigned to the year, and not another plague or natural disaster! Between the Covid, lockdowns, and huge flood of cicadas last year this child probably decided that this was in line with how the world worked and was mentally getting his affairs in order.

[theironman]

you’re ever arguing with someone and you just give up? not because you’re out of arguments, but bc they are too dumb and it’s stressing you out.

[patrickdiomedes]

#it’s like playing chess with a pigeon#no matter how good at chess you are#the pigeon will still shit all over the board#and then strut around the board like it’s won (via thekeeperofthesilence)

that is an excellent analogy

[daingertmadelyn-deactivated2025]

[oysters-aint-for-me]

one of my favorite human quirks is when the power goes out and you’re w other ppl and inevitably someone says ‘did the power go out?’ like...you’re all sitting there in the dead dark, tv black, wifi gone, lights OUT but still they’re like ‘hm. well I have a theory but it needs to be submitted for peer-review’

[previouslysaltyfandombrat]

Me, sitting in my dark room after everything short-circuited: Hm. I can't be certain, but I don't think this is how it was a moment ago