Unburdened by the limitations of the real world, visionary concepts and fictional scenarios of architecture and design in virtual space, are explored in /imagine: A Journey into The New Virtual at MAK in Vienna, Austria.
8 new ways to fill the void
Words by Glenn Galea
Ahh yes, the gaping void that resides in us all—or as I like to call it, the A-hole of the soul. Is it a good analogy? No, in fact you could argue the exact opposite, BUT—a) it rhymes and b) it came to mind.
Humans always have to be doing something. Not all the time, of course, and with breaks—some more extended than others—but given enough time, anyone will start experiencing a longing or desire to do something. Whether it’s to not be bored, or to just kill time, or maybe to curb the deep sense of worthlessness that comes with not being productive. Whatever that reason may be, eventually, you have to be doing something. That’s the void.
Okay, good. Now that I’ve wasted a minute of your time establishing what the void is, for the three of you that are still reading, here’s a few things that—in my experience—have had an uptick in popularity ever since we got hit by the plague:
1. Breaking a sweat and steaming greens
Whether it’s doing squats in between meetings or butt clenches during, it’s never been more apparent to me that people are spending more time working out and getting healthy, just look at social media. But why is everyone getting healthy all of a sudden? For one, to live just incase you get a bad case of covids, then also because of WFH + more free time, but mostly to enjoy some ↓
2. Good-lookin’ cookin’
Life’s all about balance and if you’ve done something healthy today, you should probably eat bad. The food I’m referring to is diametrically opposed to healthy cooking. The carbsiest, butteriest, jammed up, chocolatey, fried and absolutely sexiest foods in the world. And that’s also the point. Smell is to taste what likes are to incentive.
3. Live vicariously through strangers
In an extremely weird turn of events our forefathers (and some of us) could never anticipate, people are getting an insane amount of pleasure from watching other people having fun. From watching gamers on twitch to people being in a hot tub… also on twitch (yes, it’s a thing), you can always count on other people to fill your void.
4. That side hustle
Being forced to be at home made a lot of people realize that if there’s nothing better to do, might as well do some extra work and earn some money.
5. Crypto-NFT-Blockchain-mania
It seems like a lot of people spent their lockdowns learning all about blockchain, cryptos and NFTs. Two years removed from this informal education I can’t help but cringe at all the people complaining about how the NFT they wanted to buy for the past 2 years got expensive.
(Check out the Von Beasts Collection before they get too expensive!)
6. Crafts at the house
A friend has been doing a ton of crafts lately and maybe that’s why it made the list, but hey, great way to fill the void. Anyway, she doesn’t do the good old macaroni art or glitter on paper type crafts, she’s more into grown-up creations, like pottery, cement work, clothes modification and needlework. Not only did she (shoutout Mik) sew the red heart you see on the left, she also provided this picture →
7. Podcasts
Recorded, uninterrupted—preferably unedited and unscripted—long-form discussion about almost anything and I’m in. If you’re like me and you want to learn about interesting things that require more than a few minutes to get into, or to the bottom of, then you’ve almost certainly noticed a general uptick in people’s podcast consumption as of late.
8. UFC
The fastest growing sport in the world! Have I heard this phrase many times? Yes. Is it a fact? Who knows? What I do know is that I’ve been watching combat sports for quite a while now but I’ve never watched more fights than I did during the pandemic. And by fights I mean MMA (the sport) and by MMA I mean UFC (the organization). That’s because when Storm Rona hit us and all sports died for the better part of two years, the UFC took a three week break and came back with a vengeance with some of the best fights of all time.
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