In North America and Europe we are bound to have to spend the winter mostly in our own domiciles due to political mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic alongside the scourge of ignoramuses who don’t wear masks. Being stuck in one environment all the time will inevitably lead to boredom, so we must find ways to keep ourselves occupied. Consider crafting.
Pickup a hobby, any hobby, and get crafty with it to make these long winter months fly.
That’s another side of crafting that I personally find, perhaps paradoxically, valuable: how separate it is from my actual work, and how it makes me feel productive without that productivity being tied to the pursuit of money. Of course, plenty of people make their living in part or wholly by selling what they make, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with picking up a craft with the hope that you might be able to sell your finished products. Especially at the beginning stages, though, I’d advise against focusing on that as your end goal, and instead concentrate on turning off your anxious brain, deciding which skills you’d like to get the hang of, or thinking about who you might like to give the first (or, let’s be real, third) fruit of your labors to. No shame whatsoever if that recipient is yourself.
So how do you choose which craft is right for you? There’s no such thing as a “crafty person†versus a non-crafty one, IMO, but your mileage may vary in terms of how much time, attention, and money you’re willing or able to invest. This goes triple during, say, a pandemic, when it should be considered a rousing victory simply to get through the day.
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