Five ambitious craft projects that are almost like having an actual purpose in life

Unsure what to do with your life? Lacking a purpose, a calling, a reason d’être? How about filling the void with an overly ambitious craft project so elaborate you won’t have time to contemplate about your life’s essential lack of meaning?

Here are five crafty ways to distract yourself from that imminent existential crisis.

Make your own sauerkraut

Ultrasounds blowing up your FB newsfeed? Sure, pregnancy offers the opportunity to witness the “miracle of life” unfold, but you can actually experience a similar sense of wonder watching a jar of cabbage ferment.

Decoupage

When you were younger, you wanted to be a hard-hitting investigative journalist. While that didn’t pan out, you can still incorporate newspaper into fun papier-mâché and decoupage projects.

Knit a jumper

Everyone’s always so impressed when they hear your brother’s a doctor. Sure, open heart surgery is hard, but you think he’d be able to handle a stocking stitch? That requires real dexterity.

Brew your own beer

Your sister, Emily, is in Uganda using her PhD in engineering to help local communities build sustainable water filtration systems. You know what else involves filters? Brewing your own beer. They’re basically the same thing.

Sew a quilt

After seven years of studying, your best friend recently qualified as a lawyer. You know what else is going to take seven years? Finishing this fucking quilt.