Si hortum in bibliotheca habes, nihil deerit.<p>Cicero: Epistulae ad familiares; IX, 4<p>(Either an exercise in Latin or web search.)<p>More generally, Nature is a wonderful entropy engine (not my line but I can’t find any citation online). Find a hook there…if not gardening then hikes, kayaking, birdwatching, etc.. Leave nothing but footprints.<p>Write a grant proposal on some area of interest that would require only paper, pencil, your library, standard computing resources, Internet. Submit it to yourself. Celebrate when you get it approved. Work at the pace you choose. Submit oral status reports to yourself, and bask in the positive feedback you receive from the only reviewer of any real merit, you. Document if you want, but don’t obsess…no one will care after 50 years anyway, though there have been exceptions (Emily Dickinson, Thomas Traherne). Write a bot that tweets you occasional praise from official-sounding organizations.<p>Volunteer work of any sort can be soul-affirming. Create art, music, poetry. Only boring people get bored. Don’t be boring.