25
votes
What's something spontaneous you've done recently that you loved doing?
Recently I've been getting Instagram ads for those "side quest" decks that are designed to make you do more spontaneous things on a day to day basis. Things like, "Go to a local coffee shop you've never been to" or "Talk to a stranger". I've been slowly sinking into the fall season apathy and winter blues and have been looking to spice my life up, but I kinda don't wanna spend money on a bunch of cards.
What are your experiences with spontaneity in your daily life? Anything exciting that has come out of it?
This year I spent a bunch of time in different countries and wrote about it a month ago here
A couple. First, my mother and I went to the library a few weeks ago. We haven't been there in years, and it only reopened a year ago after some major renovations. It felt so invigorating to be there again and see the changes. It has a computer lab with a 3D printer now! And rents board games! It feels like so many options have opened up to us!
More spontaneous than that, Amy Bruni from Ghost Hunters recently had a local show about "Life After the Afterlife" and we got tickets on a whim. My mom actually thought the speaker was the woman from Dead Files when she suggested it, but it was still pretty fun and enjoyable.
And it's led to another spontaneous decision. The program was for all the shows at the center for this fall, which is how I found out about an upcoming performance of Animaniacs: In Concert. A wonderful neighbor ended up getting two tickets for me as a surprise, and today confirmed plans with a friend to go! I've never been to a show at this particular theater despite it being the biggest in our city, so I'm looking forward to it.
Real Talk
I'll be honest, this is all because of my dad's recent death. I heavily doubt we would have gone to the Amy Bruni show if he was alive. When my mom first suggested it I initially thought no, because while I like hauntings I'm not big on shows like Ghost Hunters, but I agreed because... Well, we needed it. And even if I'd heard about the Animaniacs show without it, I don't think I'd attend either.Just, I feel like it's given me a new outlook on life. Nothing huge or some mind-blowing revelation, but just all these small little things adding up into something larger I can't fully see yet. I've always been a homebody and introvert (we regularly joke about how the pandemic is basically my dream, and I'm definitely one of the few who didn't have a hit to my mental health from it), but since his death I've been more open to these spontaneous activities.
Hope you're doing well! I think the little things really do matter sometimes, and it's really hard to see in the moment until you're a while aways and looking back wondering how it all started. I'm hoping to get some ideas to inject more spontaneity in my life, hope that some other ideas help a lot.
I'm totally jealous about the Animaniacs thing - I didn't know it's an option? Was it the music or did it feature Rob Paulsen, Jess Harnell, Tess MacNielle, Maurice LaMarche, etc?
It has a few of the voice actors! The program I had only mentioned three, but the official site suggests it has all three siblings! You can see a list of the shows here on its official site.
Nowhere in New England, and I don't think I could make it to NY :(
Sadly they'll be near where I lived in TX though. Oh well, I did get to see them (and Mark Hamil, though to me he was just a sideshow haha) at the '04 San Diego Comic Con, which made me realize how awesome and talented voice actors are.
Voice actors feel heavily underrated by both audiences and the entertainment industry. It's a different skillset from regular acting since you can't use your face to help convey emotion, and it's also all too easy for a recognizable voice to break the audience's immersion by reminding them of another character. I didn't realize that Uncle Iroh and Aku were voiced by the same actor for years despite the voices being near-identical. The main difference was just delivery.
It's frustrating how more and more movie studios are putting celebrities into key voice acting roles for this reason. Some can play the character like Mark Hamill, but others just sound like themselves. It breaks immersion a lot when I keep imagining John Mulaney and Andy Samberg every time these two chipmunks talk.
Ugh, I'm so tired of hearing about people talking about how awesome their libraries are now because mine is tiny and basic. I think I'll have a chat with the people who run it and see if they'd be interested in me donating my older 3D printer.
I have to be honest and say I was enjoying the free ride for what it was and didn't think about one of its possible destinations. Parts of it were fun and exciting, especially the first stages. Others were exhausting, scary, and even traumatizing. It was definitely expensive and not for everyone, but I had a lot of help and all the construction happened offsite anyway. I'm not sure I'd do it again, but the result was pretty sweet.
spoilers
I had a kid.When mine was around 2, I was talking to a co-worker who had kids the same age, and we were swapping "this gross thing happened" stories. I looked over, and another co-worker, just out of college and newly married, was watching us wide-eyed and terrified. I said, "Don't worry. It'll be gross, but it will be the best thing you ever did." Eight years in and still think that's true, though I am girding myself for the teenage years.
Good luck! I'm personally not planning to have kids (who knows in the future, I'm still young) but raising a kid nowadays must be tough.
Thanks!
Also, I noticed we are username neighbors in the sense that mine is derived from this Octavia Butler quote:
~Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents
haha is having a kid a... spontaneous thing??? Either way I hope you enjoy it!
Well, having the actual kid was not spontaneous. Totally irresponsible, unplanned unprotected sex definitely was ;)
This confused me for so long until I realized you must just not be the partner that carried the kid haha
I don’t think I have a spontaneous thing to share, but I have a suggestion for you: why don’t you try making yourself a deck of cards? This way you can know in advance that every card is something you’d be willing to do, and that it’s something that pushes your boundaries just the right amount without being way too mundane or way too far out there.
There are plenty of places online that will print and ship you custom cards of your own making for a relatively reasonable price, I don’t have a particular website to recommend but there should be plenty of reviews for you to scope it out!
Honestly I'd probably write something like that in app form (might be a good thing to add to my portfolio lol), but also I don't have too many ideas! Was hoping to crowd source some from this thread haha.
My wife and I have had a rough year. To cheer us up I bought us fishing licenses this spring, we've fished so much the last few months. I would take off work early some days and we would head to the lake to spend some time together fishing. My wife is very outdoorsy.
hope your year has gotten better! have you caught any fish you were super proud of? I'm not the outdoorsy type but i do like hiking, might be nice to hike to a spot to fish :)
If you are asking about planned spontaneity, then I am your tildy-person-rino.
Have you ever seen a cool photo, or a fun looking video? And thought "dude, that looks like a lot of fun!"
If I can't do it immediately, I add it to a list. A shopping list if I need to buy supplies. A generic to do list if it requires a little planning or time. A five year plan if it requires significant planning.
I added googly eyes to my Roomba because it looked fun.
I cooked Adam Ragusea's fire beans because it looked fun to my kid.
I planned a hide and seek for my wifes birthday presents because it sounded fun to a family member.
While it isn't recent, I learned fire dancing and went to burning man, because it looked fun, and I added it to my five year plan.
If you are looking for something more, like, right now, here are some ideas.
I love it! all of those seem like great ideas. Do you feel like you're limited by time or energy or money? I'm not exactly broke but I constantly spend money on other things such as traveling and making those experiences better so sometimes I'll just balk at things out of my budget. At the same time I bought a sewing machine recently to learn how to sew, I've signed up for ASL classes, and more.
At the same time I feel like by the end of the work day, I'm just so worn out of working (and slacking off tbh lol) that I just want to sit at home and vegetate and not talk to people. Definitely will keep your ideas in mind though!
Traveling sounds like spontaneous fun.
It is! It takes a lot of work and timing haha, I linked about my adventures in the main post!
Spontaneously decided to get a membership to the YMCA down the road and add 4 days of exercise to my week. Swimming at 6am on Monday and Friday, 20 mile bike ride at 6am on Wednesday and weight training on Tuesday after work. It's been great and really gives me something to look forward to.
wow, that's a lot! Yeah this year I decided to get all my doctors appointments in at the same time, and ended up going to a dietician who's been motivating me to do more exercise more, and I've been 10 pounds down since August! Hope it goes well for you :)
Decided to go to Budapest (Hungary) for a music festival ~1 month before the event. Carbon Based Lifeforms was playing live and I really wanted to see them. Never been to something like this before nor camping for 7 days in a row.
A very memorable and wonderful experience. I would love to go again next year.
that's cool! How did you enjoy camping? I've been getting pressured to go camping but i'm not super into it haha, maybe one day!
I'm not big on camping either. I enjoy modern luxuries a lot. However, at least in my experience, camping was secondary (or even tertiary). The goal was the festival and camping was just a necessary "evil" I didn't mind.
When going camping with friends, I imagine it's more about socializing and experiencing the shared "suffering" (kidding) of camping. Spending mornings making delicious breakfast over an open flame. The day hiking/swimming. Very late evenings with some drinks while contemplating life.
Honestly same lol. One day i'll try it though! Hope you get to go again soon :)
This isn't something I've done recently, but I realized this might be good inspiration for others:
Look up if there are workshops and open studios at local art centers. They cover all sorts of mediums like drawing, digital media, clay, sculpting, etc., but there are some really interesting ones you can't do at home. I did a glass blowing session once in high school, and it was hard but I enjoyed it a lot. I still have the paperweight I made, and actually ended up entering a photo of it into a high school photography contest and had it displayed in an exhibit.
Yes! Seconded for Community College. I've been wanting to learn ASL for a while so I randomly signed up for it at my community college, it's been really nice learning it so far. Relatively cheap too
This probably isn't what you're looking for, but I went into a chocolate store.
A mall near me changed a store from a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Company into Läderach. I went in and they gave me an extremely generous sample of whole hazel-nut filled milk chocolate and I ended up spending $10 on some of the best chocolate I've ever had in my life. Not only is the chocolate base fantastic on its own (it's got a definite snap to it while still being extremely creamy), but if you get one with nuts in it they are roasted and covered in a very thin layer of carmelized sugar so they have a very lovely crunch to them.
On the other hand the chocolate is crazy expensive (they have a gift box that costs $500, and that $10 worth of chocolate I bought was roughly the same diameter of my palm) and it turns out the family who owns it donates to anti-LGBT and anti-abortion groups. So I probably won't go there again.
Last month I went to a play and enjoyed myself so much that during the intermission I actually bought a season subscription to the theater. The first show is a limited-time thing that I actually had to pay extra for, but it's coming up in the next couple of weeks and I'm excited for it.
There are some shows in the package that I'm not super excited about - one of them is a modernist ballet - but I'm hoping to expand my artistic horizon a bit, so I'm still excited just because I'm not entirely sure what to expect. It also came with a bonus showing at a different venue owned by the same group that I'm kind of excited to see just to see what the place looks like. I'm most excited to see A Strange Loop because the description sounds like it was made just for me.
Haha why wouldn't it be what I'm looking for? Shame about the anti-LGBT things though :( Maybe you can find some more ethical companies to support if you're getting a hankering for chocolate again? I don't know any but it might be an interesting hobby, personally I do a food of the month thing as well, but for hot sauce! It's definitely interesting to try and understand the intricacies of a specific food lol.
Wow that's pretty cool! I also recently went to a play with some friends to support our mutual friend that was starring in it, it was pretty incredible! Plus the community aspect was very nice, I think maybe I'll try and look into that for my hometown too, thanks for the idea!
I really shouldn't be eating chocolate anyways. It's not that it's the worst food there is, but eating it tends to give me cravings for food I shouldn't eat.
maybe as a treat! I've been "dieting" and I'll always have room for one "cheat" thing lol, life's too short to only eat chicken breast and broccoli every meal.