Thank you, Mark, for this. I hear ya, my friend.
Yes. I have indeed tried to just 'simply occupy my mind'.
Nothing works for me.
Not in this year nearly all year my year#4. You know I'm neither 'young' nor a 'newbie', being in year#4.

Year#3 I thought I was doing well, managing well, active again, happy, taking good care. Enter: I got a creative project last year which I thought I could do well, and manage to take care of my brain, resting to balance out the activity.
I similarly to andi perhaps, thought I was taking good care while enjoying being moderately more active and engaged in the world. After a year of "being better, doing better" I simply couldn't sustain it and all went away, including my self. Ugh.

To answer your question, for example I cannot abide any music whatsoever. No 'relaxation' music, no classical music, not our fave rock&roll from our 'SaladDays'. Not even REM or CountingCrows. REM used to be 'good for my brain', and Mozart. Can't go to the symphony or ballet, or any live music.

DownHere is home to such richness & diversity of American music genres and songwriters. There is really fine live music, jazz, or whatever to enjoy every night of the week all year outdoors, free, in small lovely venues with beautiful sunset to enjoy. One of the things I loved about Gulf Coast living. Sigh.
Can't do youtube either.

Crossword puzzles now serve only to remind me painfully of the cognitive, vocabulary and language skills that I've lost. No sudoku. No drawing, no calligraphy. No reading books or magazines. Can't sing or even hum!
Solitare using playing cards makes me feel hopelessly doomed and like 'just passing time'.

Playing cardgames on the computer and anything like luminosityjust tax my eyes/vision or just plain annoying. (I'm just not a gamer. And that's okay. I like playing canasta with real cards, real people, yes. I presently can't abide 'chattiness' of people; conversations are annoying, taxing, difficult for me. Hey, Mark, I'm tellin' ya, this 'me' is no fun!

I 'hate' tv'; for me it's all largely stupid, irrelevant, or annoying.
Movies can be okay, sometimes. I really didn't watch tv pre-crash. Now my tv is too small, i.e. my vision is such that it's really taxing for me. No radio, no talk shows. No books on tape. Did I say no magazines or short stories, even?

Lil dogs that don't yap & barkbarkbark, cats, and birds, yes! Yes, I walk my friends' lil canine guys and gals down by the bay now that it's Autumn DownHere.


I can do knitting, or ironing, or wash the car or the dishes, or volunteer somewhere, but my mind doesn't 'rest' in so doing. I can no longer it seems just 'simply' do anything.
My 'mindfulness' has turned seemingly malevolent and all consumingly 'doomed', against me. Positive-thinking and affirmations? Don't work for me anymore; I've grown cynical about all that. (Perhaps I need to change my signature! ha ha.)

So, thank you. I've tried. I cannot 'divert' my mind. Sigh.
So for me, my one small hope is this ray of light-in, to truly go back to beginners mind, i.e. retrain in a more rigorous meditative 'discipline of mind'. I am already painfully aware of my thinking mind. I'm just outta tools to work with that as I am now in all this life-changingness.

With respect and appreciation,

Theta

P.S. I promise to later severely edit this at-length post!