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!
Grab a knife and start whittling / building a pallisade to protect the dock.
Video games?
I do not have the patience or perhaps even attention span to play video games.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yeah, that makes it a difficult proposition for sure.
Then again, at least you get to see such things, so the lack of chickens is worth it!
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.
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.
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.
I'm not quite on a first name basis with the humming birds yet, but I'm getting there. I also have a few yellow warblers and goldfinches that visit. But they are very antisocial and standoffish. I did locate a ruffed grouse nest in the far corner of my property. I counted 16 eggs in her nest. I'm hopeful that at least half of them hatch, and she can carry 3 or 4 to adulthood. I usually have a clutch of mallards under my dock every year. But I haven't seen any just yet. It was a very late spring here though so the hatch is a bit late.
If you talk to my Wife, (Grandma), she will tell you I do a lot of useless things around here. And that I should do more sweeping and vacuuming and less time fishing as a rule. But she still enjoys the fish, berries and mushrooms I forage out of the forest every year......
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.
I'm right handed and can't read my writing.
Maybe a typewriter? Preferably in need of repair.
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
I think the "dull" metre is an external one...
I'm into all manner of exciting things that people think are completely dull if I talk about it...
Welcome to the party.... (please turn the music down as you come past the stereo and can you bring less spicy dip next time please?...)
I think you are probably correct that "dull" is the projection others place upon you. And not what you place upon yourself. My postings here have been done with a tongue-in-cheek manor. Hopefully, I have brightened peoples day. If only for a moment.
Thank you for the welcome! I believe I will stick around for at least a bit. But you probably don't want me around the stereo, I'm likely to just turn it off as I would turn it down. I really do like my quiet. And I will work on the dip thing. But to be fair, I do like me some spicy food at times.
If you are looking for displacement activities that have large amounts of slow steady methodical development of learning and new skills, with a thrilling and short adrenalised conclusion, I can highly recommend low powered model rocketry.
I've progressively levelled up my design, construction and painting skills, and the 10-90second flight at the end is quite a rush when you find out if your all your work passes the ultimate test from the laws of space and time, or if you're about to instead learn something to take into the next build...
Plus, there's usually plenty of rocketry clubs scattered around with amazing people to help on the journey...
Horology is hardly dull. We all have to do something. No shame in it.
I know right? The gears and flat springs at that size are marvels of man's mind and craftsmanship! I do enjoy building model air powered steam engines in my shop though. It's been a few years since the last one. Perhaps I should start designing a new one again.
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.
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.
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.
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.