Upon needing a hobby

Was recently asked to help someone find a hobby they can be passionate about. I'm not even sure I could answer that question for myself let alone someone else. But for a moment I thought about something I am sort of passionate about and how could that be considered a hobby. Most folks probably don't give their penmanship any consideration what so ever. Mostly your hand writing is used for jotting down a quick note or grocery list. Then there might be the random form you have to fill out at a doctors office. But mostly your writing is just a tool to get the task at hand done and not really much more. 

Now for me, it's a little different. I wish that I had someone I could spend time time writing letters back and forth. Yes a real life pen pal. But instead my words are put towards letters to me. I journal quite often. There are words that come together that make up the day's events or words to further mentally process what ever it is that has been draining my mental energy. But I look at my scribbles and I think about the chaos of the marks that are drawn across the page. Could I make these marks a bit prettier? 

Now I will never have flourishing swirls decorating pages of my journals. Nor will they be transformed into some sort of calligraphy styles prose. All I am simply saying is to allow time so that my penmanship flows to the point is relatively neat words. At least so they are fairly readable and could possibly make the page look a little nicer than a page when the scribbles really look awful and let alone highly unreadable. If not only looks unreadable but something that would take up far too much time to try and decode the page. 

So that's what I have been doing. It's a hobby, in a way, that I have an interest in. And it goes along with my small passion for a good pen (not some fancy pants pen that but a decent economically priced one that functions well for the flow of my own hand). Plus this is a hobby that doesn't require much in supplies. Ok, I will say I just can't have too many pens. But compared to pen lovers I have seen online my collection is puny and very modest. The other bonus is the fact this hobby goes well with my attention deficit mind that it doesn't require of me to focus for long periods of time accomplish much. I can practice my hobby in small spurts, on the go, and just about anywhere I have pen and paper handy. And sometimes I don't even need that. I can write on my phone or iPad using a stylus or just my finger. Though I must say I do prefer to practice with real pen and paper. 

Brain Dumping

There are so many times I have ideas and thoughts, but it just seems like my mind gets so cluttered with all the things that pop up into it at random. Then the idea is lost, and forgotten.  This same thing goes for when I want to journal about something, or even to put together thoughts for a blog. Most of the time when I do blog, it is on a wild whim, when the thought comes to mind, and I just spew it forth.

Some way, or some how I came across a youtube video of someone discussing a notebook. Oh, there are others out there that love notebooks? Well, of course there are. Some folks get so very creative with their journals. I am not artsy by any sense of the imagination. But I do enjoy looking at what others do with their journals.

Then going through a few of the videos, I heard the vlogger mention brain dumping. Hm, What is that? Basically its often what I do when I journal. However this is more of a way of just quickly getting the thoughts out. The mind can get so clutter trying to remember all these things. But truly the mind should be for thinking and thought processing, not necessarily just for storage of all those random loose strings. So it would be better use of your time to reallocate your mental energy for things that matter. 

So here are some ideas to clear the mind for things that matter. Create a space to brain dump. You can do this with a spare notebook, or use your phone to create lists. Some folks use google keep, evernote, reminders, or just a notepad.

1 - A place to do it
2 - Don't organize it
3 - Just get out those ideas
4 - Reallocating mental energy

There was a time I had this big event coming up that was using a lot of my energy trying to remember all these little details that popped up in my mind. So I would think about what clothes do I want to wear, do I need socks and shoes, or wearing sandals? Do I have enough milk to last for the weekend? How about thank you cards? Should I have a this or do I need to do that. Am I going to be gone from home long enough I need to keep spare insulin with me just in case. The thoughts could really run the entire gambit. So I had a spare notebook that I was using for just odds and ends. This one I grabbed and started jotting a list down. Most often my mind would be flooded with all these ideas at the time when I should be laying my head down to quietly fall to sleep. But that broken record just would never allowed my mind to settle so that sleep could happen. When the thoughts were thrown onto the page, then my mind didn't have to keep reminding itself about this and that. Finally I would find my mind settling down so sleep could occur.

So, I had used the idea of a brain dump in the past and did not quite realize that was actually the case.  But today I really think that this is something I need to make more a part of my day, and also my writing process.  I have a couple of journals that are not that great quality, and wouldn't be something that would be worth archiving for using as a regular journal. Today I started it. Put in some of the ideas I mentioned above - and then when a thought popped in my head such as BLOG TODAY - Yup, that was written down and here I am actually putting that random thought into action. And reallocating my mental energy into a better productive outlet. 

Today I feel like there is a bit of mental clarity, and I have more writing to do. Might be some ideas for blogging, or for my personal journal. But there are ideas, and I need to start putting them into action. One of them is a notebook idea I came up with last night. That's another topic - and would be perfect for another journal entry on another day.  So stay tuned - just never know what might pop up on this blog. But hopefully there will be more useful, random stuff put forth. (That sounded better than spewed on the screen. LOL)

Mishelle