What are things that bring you joy?
Painting tabletop miniatures
this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2026
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Speedball lines of opiates and cocaine.
Mostly simple stuff
An entertaining or educational book, a good philosophical argument, enjoying moments of good health, leisure, and company, the double barrel shotgun in doom, learning a new song or technique on the guitar and using it to create my own stuff, warm socks and cold coffee, figuring out a bug or defect in a program.
Oh, hey, OP! I, too, enjoy touching paintings w/ a bone-dry brush and then holding still in the moment. 😶
Seeing animals, especially in the wild, especially birds. I like to think of every sighting as good luck.
Every morning my two youngest kids (under 5) get up around 7:00 AM. The first thing they want to do is sit on my lap in the recliner while I either read to them or turn on one of their TV shows and we just chill for an hour. We do this every day and it's my favorite part of the day.
That moment when you're stuck on a part of your code and you figure it out, write it, test it and it just works.
It's rare, but when it happens, it feels very good.
My wife
My morning meditation
My garden
My cats and dog
My electric bill- no, wait.
I'm a simple man... I see a cat and I pet it. This makes the brain produce the happy juice.
Toddlers. Seeing toddlers stumbling about and discovering their world is fascinating to me.
Similar but different, we have a kitten and it's funny to see him trying to figure things out. The other day he just stared at our Keurig when I was making coffee. We don't use it that often and I guess he hadn't seen it in action before.
Music, walking and cats :3
Ultra mega hyperfixating on one very specific piece of technology for days on end, then burning out lmao
Taking the bus. Just sitting and being able to have my thoughts for myself. Also walking.
Computer games but I really need to play less digital games and more analog games instead. Both have an enormous backlog but at least I have stopped buying more... Digital games.
I like the digital ones because I severely lack the space for analog ones besides my RPG shelf hahaha.
Mostly alcohol, and @urheber@discuss.tchncs.de
Edit: My cat too
Yey, love you !!
You'd never guess, but i love you too
Books, good food, a good laugh, and my best friend. These are things that come to mind straight away, but there are certainly many others!
Helping others, having friendly interactions with people (online and offline), birds landing on your outstretched hand, when a happy dog looks up at you with their happy smiles, when a cat comes to see you after the owner says "She's nervous around strangers",.. A solid sleep and feeling refreshed in the morning.
A good coffee, a cold drink on a hot day, when a seed has sprouted in my garden, a hefty burrito, a heavy thunderstorm, sunshine after days of rain, the cooling 5PM breeze on a stinking hot day, ibuprofen working on a headache, when you go shopping and one of the first things you try on fits really well so you don't have to shop for hours, the first run down the hill (snow), when you come across a steal of a deal on something you've been wanting,... Too many to name.
What doesn't bring me joy is when I need cold water from the tap and hot water comes out, or if the empty toilet roll hasn't been replaced. 💀
Books. This year I’ve caught up with harry Dresden and Carl & doughnut. Piranesi was great. A solid recommend. Sanderson’s Tailored Realities was a nice collection of snapshots into different parts of his universe
Dungeon Crawler Carl has to be one of my top two favorite reads in the last year (I'd give it the top spot, but Red Rising was also really good)! It's a struggle to convey just what makes it so good, but it's been a fantastic ride. I can't wait for the next book in May!
I started the first book February 3rd after a podcaster I listen to casually mentioned it and said it was a great read. I'm on the 7th book now 😂
Looking forward to the new book! DCC 😁
During the Covid Quarantine, I took up the guitar again, after having quit playing decades ago. I was terrible back then, but I've practiced every day, and become pretty good.
My primary objective was to be able to sit and play my guitar good enough to entertain myself, and I've accomplished it. I can fingerpick about 30 songs start to finish, most with my own arrangements, and about 5 originals that I think are pretty good. I've also become a credible lead guitarist as well. Lately I've been getting into recording.
Nothing is more satisfying than sitting on the front porch at sunset, looking out over the pond across from my house, and fingerpick through some favorite songs, and work on new ones. By playing the guitar instead of eating, I've lost 100 pounds, and I'm still going. It's also been remarkable for my mental health.
Having a creative outlet like a musical instrument has been amazing for maintaining a healthy, less cynical mental outlook. I took a similar break for a real long time and picked it up again a couple years ago and it's been fun but takes determination to keep it up.
My secret was to play for 20 minutes in the morning when I first got up, 20 at night before going to bed, and 20 minutes somewhere during the day. That gives you 60 minutes a day.
You're really only focused for about 20 minutes anyway, so after that youre basically wasting your time anyway. Better to get three focused sessions per day, than one long one where you weren't really concentrating for most of it. And if you miss a short session, you only miss a little, you don't skip an entire day.
Force yourself to do that for 2-3 weeks, and it will become a positive habit that will feel weird if you skip it. Hopefully, you are so motivated to go on your musical journey that you won't need to convince yourself too much, but it also helps that your progress will be so fast that it will become self-motivating.
Eventually, I got away from that schedule, because I was playing a lot more than that per day anyway. I've became a bit obsessed.
3 x 20 min per day. That's what I did, and I was shocked at how quickly I progressed.
That sounds pretty similar, the first few months i'd go from lots of playing and practicing for a few weeks then nothing then coming back to it for a couple weeks etc never making very much progress. Now I do a session in the morning for around 20 min to do some practice for techniques and play a recent song I learned or am working on. Then in the evening a mix of stuff for around an hour. I try to keep 3 things going: 1 technique to practice (currently working on tapping), 1 new or recent song to practice (having fun with sanguisugabog's dead as shit), and song writing or playing to a backing track so if I get bored or stuck on 1 I have 2 others to pick from.
That sounds pretty similar to the kinds of things I was practicing for a while, and I was improving well.
Then I caught the acoustic bug, and really got into it. I still played electric, but much less. A couple of months ago, though, I started playing more electric again, and bringing a lot of finger picking techniques to electric playing, so it looks like that's the next stage for me. I've always liked the hybrid picking of people like Knopfler or Buckingham.
Tapping hasn't grabbed me yet. I'm sure I'll get inspired one day, and go down that path at that point.
I feel this. I started playing the piano again early in the pandemic. I did not appreciate it when I was a kid and my mom made us each practice for an hour a day but I appreciate it now.
Camping, hiking, a crackling fire, being outdoors. Sunshine, snow, rain, winter. Beaches, mountains, forests. Skipping stones on a lake. Pottery, programming, puzzles. Good coffee, good tea, and hot drinks in general (esp. Feuerzangenbowle!). And probably more?
Music
I had a nice little walk today
Cooking and eating.
The feeling that I’ve helped someone or something feel safe and loved. Usually that is cats but in any case it feels nice to know you’ve put more of those foundational good feelings into the world somehow.
There is a cat in the crook of my arm right now, and I know she feels safe and loved and in return she’s basically radiating mental health at me.
Man I agree with this so much, almost to a fault. When my dogs were alive, I knew that every minute I wasn’t there with them was disappointing for them. It created insane feelings of guilt in me whenever I left.
It’s healthier with my cat, since cats decide when they want something on their terms. When my cat wants love, he comes to me and I give it to him. But the idea that I’m improving the life of an innocent life form is so rewarding.
Books, cats, coffee and drawing/painting. I could also say "working", as my job is reading, learning and being amazed (I'm a biologist).
Well organized workspaces and scrap pieces that fit absolutely perfectly.
Building LEGO's. Mostly plants and animals but I've got some space and pop culture stuff as well.
Playing boardgames. Euros, puzzlers, co-op's, card, and classics.
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Can't remember.
The things that brings me joy are tech, computers, and games. Computers are amazing, and phones are even more so, and it hurts to watch tech get twisted and used against people.
Yea they used to bring me joy as well.
But I've seem to have lost the ability to enjoy anything, so even though I play a bit, I don't really enjoy it.
My friend you need to see a professional and get that fixed. I’d be miserable without my Lexapro
I have seen them. All of them. Previously yesterday a meeting with a doctor and a nurse and an hour-long meeting with my therapist.
Genuinely it's that Finns are selfish miserable unemotional treacherous cunts, at least in this part of Finland or towards me.
It's just a cascade of bullshit that's rained down on me in the past decade or two.
And the doctors keep changing constantly without even trying to find help for the physical things I've complained about since the early nineties. But they also won't accept they're in the wrong. So because they haven't found anything I got sent to psychiatry, which wasn't needed back then, but is now. Just the fact that my life is running by without any help from anyone no matter how desperately I plead or where I beg help from. Family, friends, social workers, doctors. Hell, I was even tossed out of an ER for telling the on-call psychiatrist I'm afraid I might hurt myself or others.
I've tried literally all the drugs. Legal and illegal. I think what would help me the most is moving out of Finland. But can't afford it.
So weeks roll by like days, months like weeks and years like months. I haven't done practically anything in several years, except try to figure out what's wrong with myself and pleading for help.
"Help is always available" is complete bullshit.
I’m just one dude in the internet with little to no context, but it seems to me that you’re in a huge rut and don’t know how to get out of it. Is there anything you could do which would put you out of your “comfort zone”? I’ve discovered that the best things typically happen when I say “yes” to things even if my instinct is to say “no”. I don’t mean dangerous shit, but opportunities which can seem daunting or uncomfortable.
From what I understand, Finland has a pretty good social safety net. Would you be able to pick up and go elsewhere for a bit, even if it’s only a town over? That could be a totally different experience for you. Sounds like it can’t get worse, so why not?
I've done a lot outside my comfort zone.
And in it.
I've tried pretty much everything and just had really fkin rotten luck.
Tried setting up my own business, only to be foiled by "some bug" in the system of a creditor I took a loan from when I went mad for a week or two in 2016 out of work stress and insomnia.
I just really don't care about even trying anymore. There's only so many times you can bang your head against a wall before you get a headache bad enough that you just have to take a break.
From what I understand, Finland has a pretty good social safety net.
Yeah, people like to think so. It's good... on paper.
But for instance there's a scheme called "social credit", which some municipalities / cities use. It means that for relatively small loans, you can get a loan from the city to cover all your high interest payday loans, as not to get caught up in a debt cycle.
I had decent credit, I had paid more than 60e a month of my expensive loan (then one I took in during the mental breakdown and don't even recall and someone might have just used me and stolen it no idea) and I was applying for a small loan from this social credit. I was basically exactly who it was aimed at. And the loan I needed would've cost me 40e/month. Yet I didn't get it cause the bureaucrat social ladies didn't like my attitude, essentially. Even after I quoted the law which they use and showed them my bank statements from a few years.
So nah.
No money for moving. If I just get a few k from somewhere then that's income and can't get social security nomore, so the extra becomes not extra.
There's a reason they talk of Finland's record-high unemployment numbers. We're living in a fucked up bureaucracy and no-one here cares.
I've also switched my services to the next town over. Hasn't helped.
A lot of this is discrimination just because I've been for legalising cannabis for the past 20 or so years and anytime anyone reads it it's like "oh, heroine shooting junkie scum whom we shouldn't help, no matter what". Despite me not being any sort of junkie. But Finland views random cannabis use as shooting up or like smoking crack.
Honestly I'm kinda tired of people even suggesting that I can do something about this. If only I could communicate the amount I've done and variety of things I've tried. I just need to get the fuck out of here, really, I think.
Finland is not as great as people think it is. The nature is nice, systems good on paper, yet...
Sorry, I don’t mean to assume that it’s all in your power. Shit luck happens, often times to some people more than others. But please have faith that it can and will change. The world is big and random, and luck can change.
Yeah that's kind of the bitch about depression. You lose faith.
And I had it a looooooooooooong time.
There's nothing I can personally do anymore, but no-one in my society will recognise that and aid me. Thus this will just continue and worsen.
I've even started to disregard personal hygiene to a point. I still shower and wash my teeth, but showering used to be daily. Now I don't even get up from bed every day.
But I can't get Finland to recognise I'm not capable of work currently. Spent several years fighting it. And we have an actual legal professor on our family friends but they won't answer me and no-one will ask for me. I've just been actively pushed to this situation by my society while at the same time it's pretending I'm not even in a situation.
It's like the entire country I'm living in is gaslighting me because they can't accept realty from their delusions.
Waking up late on weekends, making a good cup of coffee, throwing on a record, and just relaxing before the day gets going.
Playing an instrument and jamming with others.
Finishing projects. Making stuff by hand.
Taking long walks with my dog.
Reading outside.
Music and dancing.
Being amongst nature.
I like when my actions do something better. Cerrently i am manipulating a friend in like eating more healthy by making suggestions that make sense
Scuba diving. Even if it's just in a local freshwater lake in winter. For a while you get to be a guest in an alien environment where you're almost weightless.
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