How to Amuse Yourself OR How To Prevent Doing Yourself In

This post is not what some of you may think it is about. Heh!

I largely stay alone. I left home at 17 (For college, not booted out or anything, though I feel I had tried my parents' patience enough). Since then I have been handling my own shit. Once I started drawing a substantial paycheck, there was nothing I wanted more than a roof of my own, where I could plonk in a hundred nails or paint the ceilings blue, without an irate landlord pounding on the door. So, I did that. Once the 100 nails were plonked in and the ceiling was painted blue, and the excitement of setting-up home had died down, I was at a loose end. I was bored. The hours sometimes strectched long and lonely after work. I dont like watching too much television and I dont like meeting people, as a hobby. I didnt want to call up friends and family and whine and sob to them periodically (I did do that, I am ashamed to admit).

So, I decided to do everything that amused me. I got involved in art, started travelling, started cooking stuff more complicated than dal-chawal, joined hobby clubs (Very difficult in Calcutta), started reading (this backfired, because now my home is overrun with books, but apart from a niggling annoyance now and then, dont mind it at all), started painting (also challenging wrt space), joined language classes, joined dance classes and keep doing random shit that I find amusing. I do get lonely even now, but I have a million things to do always and when one has a TO DO list that extends to over a million points, one tends to think lesser of poor old me.

The point of this post is that if you stay alone, do stuff that amuses or interests you and keep your brain occupied. Because nothing can kill you as effectively as loneliness and an idle brain can. You dont need megabucks always. So that should not be an excuse. I have seen many friends go down this path, and it saddens me.