i have an old, heirloom accordion that was passed down to me from my grandfather, that i've now had for years just... sitting there.
it needed some minor repairs and last week on a total whim i finally decided to investigate (knowing nothing about accordions, and only cursory level instrument repair) and i actually was able to get it playable!! so over the past week i've put in, maybe 2ish hours of practice on it, and i gotta say, it's an unwieldy motherfucker but damn, it is immediately just fun. three simultaneous streams of sheer dopamine hitting my brain: one from the joy of like, my brain Figuring New Things Out, one from the "Oh hey this actually sounds kinda good!" joy of making music, and one from feeling connected to something ancestral and cultural in a way that i genuinely wasn't expecting.
10/10, highly recommend learning a new hobby that's actually an old tradition