Sometime around the 2020 era, we lost the right to be mediocre at things we love.

No longer can you just bake bread...you must start a sourdough side hustle lol. Wanna stay fit and go jogging or running? Nah, you gotta optimize your biometrics for a marathon. What my point is that every hobby has been enshittified and gentrified into a brand opportunity.

This strange infatuation with optimization culture is killing the human spirit.

So this new year, starting tomorrow, one of my resolutions is to do something bad but fun. Maybe I write a terrible poem. I like to draw and paint, so perhaps I will draw a horse that looks like a table or sing off-key in the showers or in front of my loved ones. The algorithm driving the mainstream social media wants me to be a polished product, but my humanity lives in these messy, unoptimized, cringe-inducing joyful failures.

I will try to reclaim the right to be an amateur. Will you join me?

#creativity #hobbies #art #depression #socialmedia #newyear #resolution #happynewyear #MentalHealth #Culture #enshittification #creative #design #writing #reading #books #drawing #music #gardening #nature #running #fitness

@pheonix Doing what you do with feeling... Is what matters.

@pheonix Our right to be shit has been enshittified.

@pheonix

Already ahead on this one, getting shit at most things and every day it gets worse, and I don't even have to try, it's innate, I can be the best shit you've ever seen.

@pheonix

I’m starting art classes in a few weeks. My goal is to learn a few things I can then use to enjoy myself. I might be better than mediocre. I might not. I really don’t care.

@pheonix Absolutely!

@rolandsiegloff @pheonix
Since I don't have the time to regularly feed (or use) a sourdough, I replace it with yeast. (For partly rye bread add some vinegar).

Good enough.

@pheonix I totally did this with my sketches. Some of them come up ok, some are so terrible, but it’s not the point, and I was sharing one each day there for a while no matter what it was. And it really helps me. Good on you for saying this. I agree lots and lots.

A decade or so ago it became necessary for everything to be 'extreme.' Sports, travel, fitness, being online, etc.. Nothing one did was worthwhile unless it out-did everyone else. Your phrase 'gentrified in to a brand opportunity' is very apt. I think it's a symptom of the globalized, capitalist attention economy.

@pheonix

@pheonix

cc @mynameistillian since you were talking about wanting to be good at art earlier

@ericjames @pheonix ill try but idk how to make it not painful

@mynameistillian the pain is part of the process imo. it’s inevitable, but it makes you stronger. it teaches you things you would’ve never known otherwise

@ericjames i just feel like i am demotivated to practice if all i do after is feel regret

@pheonix

I've been saying this for about a decade or so now. I think it applies here.

If you have a hobby, something that you enjoy, that brings you pleasure... If that hobby is legal and harms no one else... You go an enjoy the fuck out of it.

If anyone... and I do mean ANYONE, tries to make you feel small because of it... if they tell you it's childish, that it's silly, pointless, a waste of your time. If they insult you, are derisive about it... That person... Is a wanker.

They think that everyone should only do things that they approve off, they're judgemental arseholes and you don't need people like that in your life.

@Anomnomnomaly and if you have a hobby, don't try to make money out of it, because then it becomes work and you'll have to find a new hobby.
In fact, a hobby can cost money. The worth of the hobby is your well-being, not a monetary return, or even skill improvement.
@pheonix

@mynameistillian may I comment?
@ericjames

@zombiecide @ericjames sure

@pheonix I must have missed that memo.

@yuhasz01 @pheonix
Having been gifted a guitar 11 years ago & advised by teacher that baritone ukulele would assist in learning I’m sure I’ve developed an addiction to it. Might be something to do with wee stubby fingers😂

@yuhasz01 🎯 @pheonix

@pheonix I make bread with yeast most weeks for our own consumption. Mrs does sourdough bread sometimes, but she uses the starter for other things too so it's always running. We eat a lot of our garden produce, but we buy plenty of food too. We make wine or cider when we have the apples, and buy it the rest of the time. And I made most of the furniture, but not all of it. It's about getting the right balance.

@pheonix I bought myself a graphics tablet a few weeks ago, and I am truly terrible at drawing and painting. But i do like to do it with some good music or a movie playing in the background.
No one will ever see my cursed creations 😇

@blue Incredible! drawing for me is kinda like therapy, it helps me in a way that I can't put to words. The output matters no more than the act itself 🥰