Together with mental hardships and lifestyle adjustments we gained some ‘extra’ time.
These times brought moments to reflect, to forcefully be taken away from the dynamic flow of life, to discover something new about ourselves, others, and the world itself. These times brought grief, peace, fear, love, creativity – all at the same time. While the new reality is interacting with our consciousness, we can also turn to the creative side to express the universe of each of us. Unusually disconnected we found something to connect with.
We want to share little things that kept us connected, hopeful, and playful when the times felt peculiar, when the concept of our typical world was slowly melting into the uncanny past.
Ray
Similarly to Michele, I started working out with VR but not as actively in the end. Other things that I picked up during isolation were stocks and plants. Now, I had made long term investments before but the pandemic inspired me to start making shorter term trades. I wouldn’t call it day trading necessarily but I was following the market regularly and opening and closing trades whenever I felt the profit was reasonable. It gave me a nice spike of adrenaline on the otherwise monotonous routines. On the opposite side, taking care of plants is more of a slow hobby. The plants just sit there, I water them, and watch them flourish. It’s rewarding in its own way.
Zack
I tried to take advantage of the COVID quarantine and lockdown restrictions to expand my art practice. Specifically, I took this chance to experiment more with creating digital artworks using algorithms. Two main projects I worked on involved writing code to intentionally alter image files’ data to create glitch effects, and experimenting with style-transfer machine learning algorithms.
I also spent a lot of time in the mountains in my backyard in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, mostly on my mountain bike, but also hiking and snowboarding.
Kate
I became a collector of quotes from books and poems. Revisiting them is inspiring and reminds me of something beyond the daily hustles. Plus, trying to memorize them feels like a great memory exercise. I also picked up a long-forgotten yearning to paint and frequently spent evenings with a brush in my hands, nothing advanced, but it was always fun to see what comes out.
In general, I spent many quiet months in a small German village making sourdough bread, walking in the fields and chopping the firewood.
Michele
While I definitely enjoy going out for a run, my routine workout activity usually starts by playing VR rhythm games that I love. It’s hard for me to be consistent if I don’t have an engaging activity to do, so VR came out handy and it’s definitely a good warm-up if not a complete workout sometimes, when I play for over 40 minutes. As a gamer I also look for the best gaming experience, my to go order is:
Beat Saber: good warm up for the arms, and depending on the song also for the legs
Pistol Whip: get ready to squat a lot if you play in hard mode, this game is gonna require all your leg power to dodge bullets
Gorn: if you don’t care about legs, Gorn is a great workout for the arms, even walking requires you to swing your hands around. And it’s definitely a pleasure to smash gladiators in the arena
BoxVR: this is the only proper fitness app among the list, and will challenge both your legs and your arms. Workouts are well made and start from easy (around 5 minutes) up to hard (around 30 minutes). Get ready to sweat hard.
To make the best out of it, I also recommend wrapping some weights to your wrists, but be careful: the situation will get sweaty very soon!
Of course make sure to protect your VR headset using sweat absorbing covers like this one:
Michele
Sometimes I also need off-screen time, after a long day working on my computer. In this case I usually walk to the nearest park and enjoy some books. More recently, and after watching the Queen’s Gambit, I got addicted again to chess which I usually play with a friend. We became so competitive that I actually started reading books to improve my strategy and mechanics. I can definitely recommend Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess if you are a beginner like me and then move onto How To Reassess Your Chess if you are looking to become a tougher opponent for your friends.
