I think walking is on the right track. If you feel mental fatigue from playing music (or other hobby), you will need to recharge and get new inspiration.

Physical activity is the best way to let the mind recharge.

Personally I currently have a lot of wood to chop, and so I do that hard manual labor just to disconnect the mind. People keep asking me if I want to borrow their electric wood chopper. I have turned down 5 people by now, and my in-law even delivered one without asking - insisting to help out. Obviously I don’t use it, because that’s not the point at all. If I wanted chopped wood I could simply buy it. I want to chop wood, because it’s a way for me to mentally zone out.

Anyway, you can spice up your walks by bringing a sketch pad and draw something. Perhaps that’ll keep your mind more focused on observing the sorroundings and giving a purpose to the walking.

cry and masturbate

Become a tourist in your own town. Find out what the big attractions are, and visit them. People love in a city, and never visit the museums, parks, libraries, etc.

Or expand your music by getting into recording. You can get Digital Audio Workstation software for free (I like Reaper and Ableton), and start recording yourself playing and singing, and since it lets you overdub, you can do all the background vocals, and even the other instruments. The learning curve is steep, and it’s almost like learning an entirely new instrument, but it’s fascinating, challenging, and fun.

Or find other players, and put together a little band, just for fun.

You could practise not needing constant dopamine? Being bored is not deadly, and if anything it can boost your creativity towards your creative hobbies. Practise seeing the good in being bored instead of constantly try to kill the boredom.

If your free time is required to be spent optimally then you aren’t experiencing the actual freedom of it. If what you want to do is nothing then do nothing.

I suspect to lead a good life you need one or more unobtainable goals to work towards like trying to be a virtuous person, provide and support mutual aid in your community, pursuit of aesthetics in art or truth in philosophy or athletics in sport etc. From those goals developing hobbies, education, skills, etc in pursuit of those goals become directed and purposeful.

I think you also need short term goals to stay motivated and functioning like chores, working, maintaining friendships and relationships, etc. But without the larger goals the smaller stuff can feel meaningless and without the smaller goals the larger stuff can feel exhausting.

I do my future self favors!

Oftentimes I may want to listen to a podcast or whatever, but don’t have anything specific to do with my hands. So I tend to tackle tasks that don’t get done daily - cleaning the microwave, folding and putting away the clean laundry, vacuuming, making my bed, weeding the garden, etc.

There’s always something that needs doing around the house. And it’s very calming and enjoyable to be able to come home to everything in it’s place and no weird smells from the kitchen haha

Anything social to do? Find a class or workshop for something you enjoy. Go to a bar (they often have games), library, college campus, public park with courts to play on, etc. theres always things to do.

Catch up with loved ones. Volunteer with your local mutual aid group. Join a local sports club.

How about meditation? It’s literally sitting around and doing nothing, except mindfully and if you notice your thoughts wandering you let them go.

Gardening and cooking. Plant some veggies or herbs used in your favorite recipes. Start a sourdough starter. Then when they ripen, use them to cook with. Feed that back into planning the garden for next year. Low cost, small chunks of time spread out over months, high personal reward.

i’ve realized in the last few years that i spend my biggest chunk of time out of work – and by far – with the community bottoms in my city, so it’s become a de facto hobby.

i suspect that it’ll never run out until i’m too old or out of shape, given how intrinsically tied to human nature it is.

If I am actually bored, I also start cleaning things you don’t usually clean. Footboards, light switches, the fridge… Put away stuff you won’t use in the next month.
But right now I am considering to put cooking from chores to hobby category in my mind. If I try to look at it as fun instead of have to - I think I will do it more. And my sourdough starter is ready to go also.

When I’m burnt out from programming, I tend to just play some video games. Depending on how fried my brain is, it might be simple, mindless games like Brotato or Slime Rancher, or maybe something more complex like a survival game.

I like crochet or knitting. When I’m working on something, there’s usually a period where I do have to focus on the task, but once I get going, I love how I can just do it ambiently, as I’m either doing something else, or nothing at all — I used to take crochet to my university lectures, and it actually helped me to focus on the lecture.

Similarly, when I made a chainmaille hauberk, I liked how easily I could just zone out once I had a bag of rings and I just needed to interlock them, using pliers. When I was piecing all of it together, I needed to focus, but I spent tens of hours just mindlessly linking rings together