askchapo

As clichéd as it sounds, coding and related tech skills. It really is useful. And better to have comrades know how to do it rather than relying on the techbro chuds that infest that hobby space.

I used to be a mechanic, but i've found that over time that it went from being something i just did to a sort of hobby i do on the side now. Definitely not the cheapest, and certainly not for the faint of heart, but i've kinda just became the local fixer for people around me. On my days off i'm usually either tinkering away in my garage on a neighbours car, or working in my garden, or messing around with carpentry. Makes it much cheaper for the people around you to live, and you get an excuse to figure out how things tick.

Public speaking! It's something you can teach yourself by reading a few articles and recording yourself with your phone. Depending on where you live, you may be able to attend Toastmasters or some kind of open mic night to practice. It's very useful in almost any arena, but in particular is essential for socialists.

Seems like your problem could be solved using those newfound skills of yours 😂

A bit of a weird answer, but listening. Being an active, engaged listener when someone needs to be heard or understood is a skill that can be cultivated like many others - in fact, in case of ND folk like me, we had to learn and remember to apply it. It connects you to the other person, it's a nice thing to do, and it costs nothing except for your time.

Happy to see so many lockpickers in the comments. Look into other forms of lock bypass and nondestructive entry. Firearms/shooting is obvious. I am going to start building fpv drones. Security culture is a good thing to begin developing if you haven't already.

Tinkering on bicycles has given me a surprising amount of cross-transferrable skill as to maintenance or building a lot of (simple) mechanical systems and how forces work on them even outside of the bicycle world.

I’m going to learn to fly a drone and take some intensive Spanish. Tons of people in my neighborhood speak Spanish and I feel like I could help my community more if I could communicate better. Also considering volunteering with habitat to learn some building skills and help with housing in my city.
I’ve already got most of the survival skills down, sewing, gardening, cooking, camping, foraging.

Can recommend lockpicking purely as a hobby. I pick padlocks with paperclips and they make a very satisfying click when you succeed which your brain immediately starts to interpret as "time to release some reward chemicals". I don't think it is actually very useful, but it is fun and harmless.

I think that all basic everyday skills like baking, cooking, knitting, repairing stuff, camping, some diy builds in woodwork and such are good and things we can use in solidarity with others as well although they might seem mundane. But getting a bag of potatoes to go a long way for a lot of people is definitely a useful skill, one I learned from my prole grandma. Also fermentation and preserving food.

Food foraging if allowed/able to do that. Berry and mushroom picking. Fishing if eating fish. Learning your plants: edible wild plants, berries and shrooms even if not able to go get them.

A basic skill in orienteering which we thankfully learn in school. If already familiar with it, keeping it up by hiking or some sort of nature shenanigans.

Rowing and skiing, these are related to my location, but reassure me that I could disappear in the woods winter or summer and move relatively swiftly.

Gardening or learning to grow your own food or a part of it, maybe urban shroom gardening or micro greens if stuck in an apartment building.

Some self-defence sports also, they helped me reassure myself that I can fend for myself if needed.

We have been making a lot of stuff from used pallets for our tiny backyard. We make our own furniture or repair used stuff as well and bake all our own bread which I also gift to others.

Going into a makerspace to do crafty stuff can also be a way to find likeminded folks or people who could use hints in the right direction.

I used to target practice as a kid with an air rifle, but I want to go take an archery class next. A hunting bow might be a good thing to own, for food and other things.

Bookbinding! Its really fun to read a book you made yourself.

Drones are a lot of fun.