Everyone should learn new things as often as they can. Pick up a new hobby or skill, become very proficient at it, incorporate it into your life, repeat. This active mental engagement is the best way to prevent dementia and keep your mind sharp.
This active mental engagement is the best way to prevent dementia and keep your mind sharp.
It’s also… you know… fun
Relevant to many of us on here, this approach also lets you lean in to your ADHD powers to better your life instead of resisting them and stressing out.
My midlife crisis is degoogling, switching to Linux, eating less meat, reducing the footprint I leave on this world, spending more time with my wife and daughter, treating my recently diagnosed ADHD and not giving as many fucks regarding work. Oh, and I took up archery. Pretty ok I guess. I’m 42.
This sounds less like a crisis and more like ‘getting your shit together’.
You’re setting things up to enjoy life more. All power to you!
I’m in that age bracket and I’ve turned to spunking the little amount of disposable income on amateur radio kit and equipment.
I wish I’d picked up a debilitating cocaine habit instead. It’d be cheaper.
Oh hey that’s something I’ve been vaguely interested in for a while!!! You enjoying it? What do you do?
Very little 😂
No I got into it to learn the theory of it more than anything. I’ve been faffing about with a VHF setup to see if I could establish a little station that could be heard anywhere in the town I’m in. That’s inexpensive to do and you can probably knock together a basic station with decent range for £100 and the time and effort needed up a ladder.
The next step is to look further afield and build a station that operates in the 20m band, but I’m yet to be able to convince Chief Girlfriend that an end fed antenna dangling across the back garden, or a fiver metre whip mounted to the roof is a good idea. HF transceivers are exponentially more expensive, and require some support devices too.
Otherwise, I go “hilltopping” and head up elevated positions with a quarter-wave antenna and a cheap handheld radio to listen out on what’s happening. It’s good for the geek in me; it’s good for the mind being at such pretty viewpoints; and it’s good for the body walking or running up hillsides.
Alternatively, I’ll sit in the garden while the kids play around with FlightRadar24 open on a device and a handheld radio tuned to the local airport approach frequency, and talk about what an aircraft is or may be doing while listening to the chatter.
So yeah, I don’t do a lot really. I live quite close to the coast so getting into marine frequencies is something on my list to do; and speaking to folk worldwide would be a laugh!
That’s fascinating. I was worried it was going to be closer to £300! Thank you for sharing!!
The FlightRadar and hilltopping sound great, and I’d love to see if I could catch some pirate radio around 👀
Honestly, I didn’t have a scooby about amateur radio until I watched a few videos by Ringway Manchester - he’s a really knowledgeable amateur. He’s a bit of a wanker to people in his comments who dare to offer dissenting opinions, but his videos are generally presented with a classic no-bullshit British vibe.
The point of this is that he pushed me in the direction of the Baofeng UV-5RH, which is a handheld that operates on the VHF bands but is very versatile. The company gets grief for producing hamstrung cheap shit, but honestly being a so-called Baofeng Warrior has provided me with the inexpensive entry point into the world of Ham Radio - and it even has a function for listening to FM radio for the… lesser-legitimate audio broadcaster needs 😊
My advice would be to get a UV-5RH (around £25), get a quarter-wave magmount antenna for the car (around (£15 for a cheap one), and check out Essex Ham’s videos on Foundation-level radio guidance (free with a recommended donation).
If you like it, brilliant - get your chequebook out and go wild. If you don’t, then you’ve invested forty-odd quid and you can get half of that back on various internet auction sites.
Have fun!
edit: but yeah if you want beyond line-of-sight communication then £300 would be well under a lowball estimate 😢
I don’t have a clue about amateur radio, so thank you for the tips!! Might have to see if Santa brings me a UV-5RH this year… See you on the airwaves soon 👀😂
A debilitating coke habit?
Unfortunately, I’ve done my time with that hobby already 🫡
I’ve thought about that! seems fun! On the other hand I have choosen the worst, most stressful, expensive and frustrating 40s hobby because I’m like that. 3d printing. Should have gone for the radio. (still spend all my free time doing that )
3d printing is pretty challenging I take it? I’ve seen pictures of some setups, with all those spools of material. Pretty neat, but probably more difficult than I imagine.
I think it’s very frustrating. I tried selling my printer twice before, out of anger lol. But once you get to understand the problems things get better. But of course I have an ender3, not a “super perfect” bambu lab. people say bambu have no problems so that would be nice
God forbid people pick up new hobbies as they grow older, we should all make as much money as humanly possible and then die i guess.
Some even try to stay healthy! What a bunch of losers!
fuck yeah i love money
The problem with hobbies is they tend to contribute to clutter and as you get older you want less of that.
I want less clutter so I’ve got more space for my hobbies
I have really enjoyed my midlife crisis (which looks a little different as a woman): lost 30 lbs, began dressing like a scary executive, got rid of the imposter syndrome, and give very few fucks. It has been delightful.
Please explain the scary executive getup. I am taking notes for my own impending midlife crisis.
Yeah is this well fitted suit scary, or turtleneck scary. I personally leaned the other way and wear literal rose tinted Lenon glasses now. Fuck it, I tried everything else to see this world as anything other than a shithole filled with idiots, may as well take a metaphor out for a spin
That is because the world is a shit hole run by idiots. This is the perfect perspective for the scary executive look. Your disgust and impatience is justified - go with it. 😉
I am reticent to take advice from a sun burn slapper, but I like the message, I will go with it
This has some good stuff: https://www.caspermagazine.com/feature/the-art-of-tailoring-with-an-edge
I see that to dress like a scary exec, I must first earn like a scary exec…
You can also adapt it to your needs. For example, replace the bag with an axe or a limp kitchen towel
Sigh. I really don’t love the walking-on-my-pants-cuffs trend, especially for dress pants (pictures in the link are worse than this thumbnail).
As someone about to hit 40, I’m tryyyyyyying to let go of skinny pants, but the above is just so impractical!
Do you have fingernails that shine like justice?
No, doesn’t qualify for one of my few fucks to give. 😉
No, but her voice is dark like tinted glass.
She’s changing her name from Kitty to Karen
You know, I’ll soon have the space to do some car restoration if she’s interested in trading me her MG so she can find a white
Chrysler LeBarongeneric luxury SUV.
🤣 good on you!
no gravel bike at 40? A deeply disturbed individual
I’m not sure how a midlife crisis would look for me because I’ve basically kept the same weird interests I had as a teen.
So basically a life-long midlife crisis?
😏Entire-life crisis
Nice live you have…
Ooooo!! 🙋♂️, I can relate to that!
I guess so. Is that really a crisis if it’s basically what you do though?
My friends and family seem to think so
similar, i went from not having transportation besides my feet to having an ebike. we joke that it’s my midlife crisis, but really it’s just my transportation.
my midlife crisis will involve so many saxophones. when i can afford a midlife crisis.
I have a very mild case of that in that I bought a weird traditional flute from Japan a couple of months ago. It looked cool and a game character I like has one. A bit hard to play, but I’m getting there.
It’ll certainly be a lot more expensive, but I wish you a future crisis full of epic sax all the same.
What flute and game was it?
A shinobue, a transverse flute made of bamboo (well, traditionally, mine is not too bad but it’s plastic. One day, maybe).
The game is Xenoblade Chronicles 3. The two protagonists play the shinobue as a ritual to send off people who have passed.
I like Okami too, and I believe Waka’s flute in that game is also a shinobue.
I bought an electric flute/recorder but never got around to learning it. Xenoblade Chronicles is on one of my list to eventually play.
Wish you well with learning it.
Thank you. i’m probably going to get the electric sax before i get the bass (if i’m spending 30 grand on an instrument i have a few others ahead of the bass sax), but we can dream.
Yeah, my midlife crisis was basically, I just got extra bored at work and spent more time doing all the usual non-work activities. Finally resolved when I decided I didn’t need to work any more, which gave me a lot more time for all of teenage-me’s favorite things. Wasn’t even tempted to buy a Corvette.
I might take up the tumbak.
Is a gravel bike something specific or just like, a regular bike?
It’s something in between a road bike and a mountain bike.
Okay yeah, so exactly what it sounds like. Wasn’t sure if it was a brand maybe or something.
Used to call those “touring bikes”, no?
No, we used to call them Cyclocross.
Do you mean the ol’ dandy horse?
I’ve been finally realizing my dream of having a home studio filled with all sorts of synthesizers, samplers, drum machines, effects, mixers, etc. Pretty frustrating since now that electronic music has been incorporated into mostly every genre and there are also a lot of collectors all the now vintage pieces that my favorite artists used back in the day are priced insanely out of reach. Upside is there is a ton of cool new stuff coming out, too much cool new stuff.
Isn’t it all software now?
Sure you can do everything in software, there’s some great sounding virtual synths nowadays. I prefer the tactility of hardware and just plugging this into that and seeing what happens, away from a computer which has taken over virtually every other aspect of life. Plus blinky lights pretty lol. I don’t use a computer for anything except to record a stereo mix. It’s mostly just to unwind and space out anyways. If I wanted to put together a song with a traditional structure I would probably use a computer. Anyways, I guess a lot of people also feel that way because the market for new hardware synthesizers has been expanding for years now, seems like there’s more new stuff coming out all the time, there’s a lot of boutique makers in the analogue and modular spaces, guitar pedals as well.
Sounds like you would enjoy https://vcvrack.com/
I’ve used it and it’s nice but I still prefer to have the actual modules in front of me to patch, and there is something going on with the circuitry of the non-DSP modules that make it a bit special. There’s some subtle modulations and such. Software does attempt to emulate this with complex maths and circuit models but it doesn’t seem quite the same to me personally.
Retro anything has jumped in value tremendously; for me its been game hardware.
30 something, regular MTB, Areopress. I’m on the right trajectory.
Dude seems like he could use a hobby
Also bialetti coffee makers are really simple little cook top devices that give you some amazing espresso for the change you’ve got in your couch. Fantastic little appliance.
Can confirm. I did exactly this at 40. Now in my 50’s I just traded in the gravel bike for an ebike and bought a milk frother for my espresso machine!
I went straight to emtb with 41 😬 no espresso machine in the house yet. I‘m too lazy to clean it.
You’re poor.
90s mountain bikes make great gravel bikes and you can usually get one for dirt cheap. Hell find a steel frame road bike and put some grippy tires on it.
Damn it. So it seems like I am prototypical 40-something.
- I do own a gravelbike (they are just really fun and also very practical for commuting)
- I love our portafilter. Nicely combines my tendency to ritualistic beverage-preparing (long-time green-tea-drinker) with my wifes coffee-habits.
- I don’t do thriathlon but probably would if I could swim decently. Learning juggling and guitar-playing instead, falls in the same category.
Life can be fun, so trying to make the best of it.
Brewing decent coffee however is fine (or tea, or caffeine pill it & hydrate) but dang nothing like having a bike that can get into some hills! Until the ski mountains open for winter but can be too far, too expensive
I would be great at the triathlon if the three sports it combines were running, bicycling and drowning.
What is a gravelbike?
Basically a road bike, but kitted out for touring instead of road racing. It’s really used to be just bigger wheels and tires but these days road cyclists are running thicker tires as well.
Hybrid between roadbike and mountainbike.
Someone posted a pic of one in another comment.I have an older one (ok, actually two…) of those:
https://www.salsacycles.com/collections/fargoIt is more on the mountainbike-y side, others are typically slightly less rugged.
Isn’t that what normal hybrids are for? I guess it looks cool though
“Normal” hybrids usually have straight handlebars. Gravel bikes usually have “drop” handlebars like road bikes.
What’s a normal hybrid?
Like a commuter bike with flat handle bars, kinda thin tires, and no suspension
Mine was in the hybrid category but does have front suspension. Helps with the craters in the roads because for some reason UK roads resemble the Donbas. Think it’s also listed as a trekking bike.
Roads, gravel paths, grass and dirt paths are generally what I go across.
I know these, although they are not as common here as gravelbikes.
Kinda like watered-down Fixies optimized for urban commute.
Will not work well in more off-road (so: “gravel”) scenarios and for touring.
Different thing, I would say.Ah ok, drop bars are so uncomfortable…
So basically the “mountain bike” I had as a kid, before the started adding fancy shock absorbers and disk brakes?
All right, now I want a gravel bike too!
You had a mountainbike with drop bars?
Unusual.Also: Basically all gravelbikes come with disc brakes, major distinction to roadbikes.
I had a Randonneur-like bike in my youth in the 80s, which had some features common with the recent gravelbikes.
I liked it very much, so was very happy when gravelbikes became a thing 10 years ago or so.
Haha, i didn’t know it had drop bars… Nope, that’s not for me :)
Different kind of drop bars than on a road bike, though: Wider and more upright sitting position.
Worth trying out at least once when looking for a new bike.
Hybrid between roadbike and mountainbike.
Hillbike!
I mean, the reason many people fit this in their forties, is because they finally have the time and money to do so.
I was too poor in my twenties to have a nice espresso setup. I make decent money now, but I have young kids now, so no time. In ten years time when I’m in my forties, I’ll finally have the time and money simultaneously.
When I was a young man in the '80s and '90s, I used to dream of owning fancy bicycles. Now I’m old enough and rich enough to afford … fancy bicycles from the '80s and '90s.
