An unofficial chapter of the popular Dull Men's Club.
1. Relevant commentary on your own dull life. Posts should be about your own dull, lived experience. This is our most important rule. Direct questions, random thoughts, comment baiting, advice seeking, many uses of "discuss" rarely comply with this rule.
2. Original, Fresh, Meaningful Content.
3. Avoid repetitive topics.
4. This is not a search engine
Use a search engine, a tradesperson, Reddit, friends, a specialist Facebook group, apps, Wikipedia, an AI chat, a reverse image search etc. to answer simple questions or identify objects. Also see rule 1, “comment baiting”.
There are a number of content specific communities with subject matter experts who can help you.
Some other communities to consider before posting:
5. Keep it dull. If it puts us to sleep, it’s on the right track. Examples of likely not dull: jokes, gross stuff (including toes), politics, religion, royalty, illness or injury, killing things for fun, or promotional content. Feel free to post these elsewhere.
6. No hate speech, sexism, or bullying No sexism, hate speech, degrading or excessively foul language, or other harmful language. No othering or dehumanizing of anyone or negativity towards any gender identity.
7. Proofread before posting. Use good grammar and punctuation. Avoid useless phrases. Some examples: - starting a post with "So" - starting a post with pointless phrases, like "I hope this is allowed" or “this is my first post” Only share good quality, cropped images. Do not share screenshots of images; share the original image.
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I used to be a Medic and Firefighter-- in short I was an adrenaline junkie. And now I'm old and retired. And my body is bent and currently a bit broken. I seek to learn how to be dull.
Despite the enjoyment of watching the hummingbirds at my feeders and the light gardening I do. I still think I could become even more satisfied with my dullness.
Guide me to complete dullness!
Asking for advice on being dull is next level dull
Well, Thank You for the compliment!
There are two main ingredients:
Let’s start with the hummingbirds. Observe them. Give it time. Get rid of distractions. Focus on the birds. See how they look. How do they behave. Can you identify individuals? Do they visit at specific times? Focus on the details. Don’t look at your phone. Let the birds mesmerise you. Do they have habits? Dive deeper into the life of those birds. Become an expert.
This can be applied to just about anything really.
I don't know man, that sounds interesting rather than dull.
Interesting to you, dull to everyone else.
Oh crap, you found a loophole! Or . . a bug, or something.
Find more plants that attract hummingbirds.
Plant them.
Watch them grow.
Now find another variety.
Watch it grow.
Hell yeah.
Edit: also. Ponder the plants. Ponder the hummingbirds. Ponder your orb.
Have you tried building a HAM radio?
No I have not. I'm not a particularly good hand with a soldering iron. Who would I talk to? But soldering might be a skill to practice. Somewhere around here, I have a couple of small Arduino boards, Zeros I think.......
There are tons of web resources on building a project from scratch, with parts lists, or communities for help/support.
But I found this guys podcasts very informative for understanding all the different terms, components, regulations, and tips and tricks.
He also posts each of them on a Lemmy amateurradio group
https://lemmy.radio/c/amateur_radio
Soldering can be practised for sure. A good soldering iron makes a huge difference. I.e. my 30 year old one died, so I got an average one on amazon. I found it didn't have enough thermal mass to keep solder flowing unless it was micro components, anything like larger wires and solder tip would cool off.
You rang? 😁 -- thank you for your kind words
@Bluewing@lemmy.world, probably not dull, but I'll carry on regardless .. I started in amateur radio to get away from my day job in computing. I chose it because it was technically challenging, did science, had a large community and was something I'd come across several times in my life previously.
I discovered an amazing collection of humanity, some good, some bad, mostly amazing and a deep joy in discovering everything that it has to offer. I also have to admit that getting away from computers was clearly misquided, since there's plenty of opportunity to integrate these with each other.
That said, there's plenty of non computing activity to engage in. Amateurs are known for experimenting and testing. We find any excuse to "activate" (build and operate a radio station) anything, from Parks, to Peaks, from Bridges to Toilets, Carparks and Light houses (I maintain a list: https://github.com/vk6flab/activations-on-the-air)
I like to describe amateur radio as 1,000 hobbies in one, essentially it's a glue (or an excuse) to do something, like go for a walk, camp out, do a competition, or a BBQ.
As for soldering. I'm not that great at it and my eyesight is making it worse, but a magnifying glass and a third-hand is still letting me melt components and the odd bit of solder.
As hobbies go, you can involve yourself as much or as little as you like and you'll find people across the planet who are interested in the things you're pursuing, plenty of opportunities to engage and have fun.
You can get started before you have a license by playing with things like WebSDR, KiwiSDR and plenty more.
If you have questions, feel free to ask.
73 de Onno VK6FLAB
Well deserved words. 😀
Crack a book open. If you want to get real wild, take out a notebook and pen and write some stuff down!
Oh I read a lot. Mostly technical manuals. But I am trying to branch out into long boring novels. But it's hard. I love reading about metallurgy and horology. It makes me excited. And I'm not sure if dull people should be excited about anything. Maybe I'm wrong about that.
I don't like writing for 2 reasons, One-- I have filled out too many run reports. Bad vibes there. And secondly-- I'm a lefty and writing is not designed for us Bar Sinister types to do. I can't even decipher what I wrote half the time.
technical manuals
metallurgy and horology
Accept that you're already prime dull. Let. It. Go. Old man
Aye. It is we who need help from you!
OP needs to learn acceptance. The dull is strong with him but he doesn't feel it yet
Horology is hardly dull. We all have to do something. No shame in it.
Paddle boarding if you've got a calm body of water nearby? It's like a nice little hike but on water, easy on knees, gotta have a bit of balance though. Talking about hiking, how about hiking?
The lake I live on, and the surrounding lakes are too big and rough for paddle boards. And at my age, my balance is what it once was either. I do have a boat, but I haven't put the lift or boat in the lake this year. I'm waiting on knee surgery and walking is somewhat painful right now.
More reason to work on your balance. You can buy (or better--build) rocker and wobble boards with varying levels of instability (stay safe!) to make washing the dishes more interesting.
I have been giving some thought to balance exercises. But I got to get my one knee fixed first since I tore a meniscus shoveling snow this spring. On the upside, I now have a matched pair of knees-- balanced in all things, as it should be. The indications of joint deterioration in the knee are very concerning to me. I maybe need to start searching ebay or marketplace for a low mileage artificial knee replacement.
It's been putting a real crimp in my walking the old logging roads and spring foraging in the forest.
Have you considered a 2nd career in Emergency Management? It's an armchair sport for adrenaline junkies.
I'm damn near 70 now. It's only a couple of years away and a paying job with regular hours? No thanks! Besides, I was the emergency management director of our small town for about 6 years. But since we didn't have any townwide emergencies during my benevolent reign, it was indeed a dull extra job that had no salary. Though I did spend most of my time wearing that hat rewriting and updating many of the protocols. Since no one had done so in 40 years. So that's a tee shirt I got already.
3 Pro tips for those interested in such a job,
Never go to a small town city council meeting and complain about the lack of preparedness for ANYTHING. You will quickly find it's you who will be doing the preparing to the tune of the railroad vote that is about to run you over....
If you really need help call the local Methodist Minister. Turns out, they also have large emergency books with names and phone numbers to gather help from other Methodist churches. They will gladly come and help you clear damage from yards and streets for free. You can mobilize an amazing number of people willing to help with the cleanup.
When the emergency hits, close all roads in and out of town. Let no one you don't know in. Armed guards if you have to. Scammers abound and are waiting for this exact moment to prey upon people who are in shock from the disaster. Keep them OUT!
****Bonus Tip-- Be wary of the Red Cross. They are of the firm belief that they know more than you do about what your town and people need. And they ain't got time to listen to you. They are the Pros and you aren't. And it's often an all or nothing package with them. Do as they say, and only what they say, when they tell you.
There are two paths you can take my friend. Either;
Lean fully into the current humming bird and gardening things. Become so brilliant at them that the day to day actions of them are boringly simple to you or,
Do a wide variety of minor and ultimately almost useless tasks. Examples of this would be; making sure you have organised all your nails, screws and other fixings correctly. Optimising your WiFi network. Building a bin store. Framing some old pictures. Etc.
I hope you find the one that fits you best.
Wave at all of your neighbors. Hell, wave at everyone. But not too long. If you wave too long, funny enough, you become less dull and more of a topic of discussion.
My nearest neighbor is over a mile away. And there are too many trees in between. A hazard of living in the middle of a sparsely inhabited forest I suppose. But we do wave at each other and even visit each other at times.
I do understand about the waving thing. And yes, if you wave too long, people do start to talk about you for sure. And you need to be careful of how energetic you wave also. That too is also a point of discussion at the local cafe.
YouTube has some incredible videos for beginners on basically any craft or skill you can imagine. Whittling, mending clothes, pottery/sculpture, organizing your home, watercolor painting, carpentry, cooking and baking… you get the idea. Anything you’re even slightly interested in will probably have good quality videos showing you step by step how to do it.
In addition to all the satisfying activities above, consider also: contributing photos to Seek or iNaturalist (citizen science plants and animal observation/identification database), visiting local cemeteries and entering images or information based on requests on Find a Grave, and checking out what events your library has going on.
I took up the guitar. Whenever I have an urge to go to the fridge, I pick up the guitar. I learned to play, and lost 100 pounds (so far).
Awesome dude! Keep it up!
Being Peace, by Thich Nhat Hanh
Getting to Where You Are, by Steven Harrison
There is a lot of value in the pursuit of self-knowledge, though I think most people hearing it described find it dull (you just... sit? for hours?). I recommend reading these in the order presented here. They will guide you in meditation without any of the mystical or religious nonsense. Learn to breathe, learn to focus, learn to be.
I think the trick with this stuff is actually being in the right frame of mind.
I was really in a striving frame of mind at my last run-through of meditation, constantly critiquing, criticizing, wanting, and it was just a bad experience all around.
Since then, I've kind of come to a weird form of self-acceptance and also an understanding that everything is ultimately meaningless (including human social progress, which I have clung to unconsciously all my life).... think I'd have a better chance at getting something out of meditation now, which raises the question of it it's unavoidably sometimes just used as more striving by people.
Backyard chickens?
The pair of eagles that nest in my trees would absolutely be in favor of that! I think the pine martins would find chickens to be a tasty treat also. And perhaps the wolf pack that travels through my trees and lake shore in the winter might hang around for a bit also. As it stands now, they just pass through in the night.
Learn gentoo, use it as your daily driver, for Adrenalin rush: never make a backup!
That way lies madness!
I've briefly tried Gentoo, no. Just no, thank you.
Video games?
I do not have the patience or perhaps even attention span to play video games.
Grab a knife and start whittling / building a pallisade to protect the dock.
I do a bit of whittling. I make a few walking sticks to give away every year at our county fair. 3 or 4 of us old guys make some, and we put them in a big barrel at the gate, and they are free for anyone who needs one.