Personally, whenever I develop a new interest, I go from one extreme from the other. I’m either barely to mildly enthused with something, to full-blown obsessed with something, to the point of spending nearly every waking moment involved with it. Eventually, I either burn out or get to some concrete conclusion, whether it be beating the game, finishing the book, etc.
Examples:
It happened about 6-7 years ago when I first got introduced to Final Fantasy VII. I think I went about 18 hours with sleep the first time I slipped that disc in.
It happens whenever I pick up a really great book. I spend every available hour on the couch turning page after page, completely submersing myself in the fictional world.
Most recently, it’s happening with the TV show “Scrubs.” I’ve known about it for a long time, but all I’d ever seen until very recently were snippets and clips that didn’t appeal to me at all. But last week sometime I decided to actually watch an episode all the way through. I was instantly hooked. I found one of those websites that hosts every TV show ever produced and began watching from season one, episode one on Friday afternoon. Now I’m just about to get to the end of the third season. I am absolutely, 100% enthralled with these characters. Certainly it helps that I’ve had an ongoing patch of boredom for the last few weeks ::coughcough::months::coughcough::, but, nevertheless, I’m completely drawn in. The only things that keep me from watching it are: sleeping, eating, bathing, going to work, and posting on the 'Dope.
In hindsight, I suppose this thread could be titled “Do You Obsess?” Well, do you?
I’m the exact same way. When I get interested in a band, say, I go from hearing a couple songs to “OMG, must find every single item in their discography they have ever put out, PLUS, must read every article and interview and review and blog posts and and and, etc.” I’ll listen to them constantly, hum the music to myself when I can’t listen to it, see my daily life through the haze of their lyrics, talk about them whenever it’s relevant, and so forth, until I come upon my next obsession.
I’ve found I can only be obsessed with one thing at a time, though. For example, I’m currently obsessed with Battlestar Galactica, and although I’ve watched a few episodes of Mad Men and feel like it’s got great obsession potential, I have to put it on hold until I’m finished with BSG. I guess I’m a serial monogamist at heart.
Heh, yeah that’s me all right. It seems every week I have some new obsession that I can’t get out of my head (though I usually burn out - I have a LOT of half finished projects lying around). My walls are covered with ambigrams, webcomics, physics jokes, all of my own design.
About a month ago I found out about a space-themed costume party, and I swear for about three hours non-stop (and I do mean non-stop) I was designing a photon costume in my head.
A few weeks ago I was trying to build some kind of thermochromic thermometer for by bedroom. Results were… varied, shall I say.
Right now, I think my friends would scream if I brought up the topic of how clumsy graphite anodes are in lithium ion based batteries. Seriously, I think there would be blood. (It was particularly bad last Friday night - I had been drinking and, well, I got a little excited about the topic).
So now I am waiting for my brain to arbitrarily obsess over something new. Hmm, perhaps I’ll go on a Doctor Who marathon or something.
Ooh, good call with the band comment. I somehow forgot to mention that in the OP. Musta been watching Scrubs or something…
There are times I’ve literally listened to a new song for an hour or two on a constant loop.
Yup, I definitely get that way too. Except for me, when I know I am starting to get obsessed with something (like a new TV show) I will purposefully watch maybe only one episode per day or just a few each week to make the series last longer. I really have to stop myself from watching everything at once because I know that will only make it end sooner. Currently my fixation has become the new Doctor Who.
Each of my hobbies usually remain just hobbies. I view them as a way to pass the time, preferably with friends, preferably while drinking beer.
Some of my hobbies come and go. I would love to learn to play a musical instrument, but the excitement comes and goes, so I have never gotten past the novice stage on any instrument. But the interest often returns.
Hello, everybody. My name is freekalette, and I’m a Doctor Who junkie. At first, it was just a passing interest as I watched my husband partake, but once I tried it for myself, I was hooked. I kept telling myself I could quit anytime if I wanted to; that’s a total lie, and I don’t want to quit anyway.
FTR- I get that way with everything, from bands to books to the SDMB. Never got hooked on drugs though, even though I smoked a lot of pot “back in the day.” It just goes to show, the Doctor is far more loveable than some crummy earth weed.
Same here. I feel like i’m trying to recapture that playing with a certain toy for hours, going to bed, getting up, and doing it all over the next day feeling.
I swear to god it’s like I typed in the OP myself. I’ve been wondering if there’s something wrong with me because of this. It drives my wife absolutely crazy sometimes. A few of the “hobbies” that I’ve had are guns, model railroads, paintball, Magic the Gathering, WoW, Fishing (although that one’s really an old hobby that’s come back thanks to new fishing buddies), Kingdom of Loathing, golf, softball, gardening, woodworking, and several other various things. I’ll literally get completely engrossed in the subject. Eat, sleep, and breathe it. Then in a few months, I’ll just end up giving it up. I’ve got several small collections from the different hobbies.
Ditto on about every item listed so far. Adding to the list: bodybuilding. I wobble between tshirt sizes three of four times a year as my pecs expand and deflate like sad, neglected, steel-cable balloons.
Props for the willpower. I have willpower in spades when it comes to exercising, studying, you name it, but when it comes to purposefully putting a newfound interest on hold, I’ve got no chance.
I’m very much like everybody else. I’ll submerse myself totally into new interests for months until I either get my fill, get bored, or find something more interesting and then move on to something new. It happens time and time again. When I first discovered Harry Potter (JKR was up to book 5 at that point I think) I read them all in 2 weeks, waited a week and then reread them all again in another 2 weeks. Same for TV shows. I’ll start obsessively watching the shows until I’ve seen them all multiple times or until it starts sucking, or they go away (BSG, Buffy, Firefly, House, Project Runway…).
I was on a crocheting kick last year for a few months while I was first learning how to do it and made many Christmas presents that way but got bored once the holidays were over. I’ll probably pick it back up again once the weather turns cooler.
Yesterday I spent awhile adding several Stephen King books to my amazon wish list, I’m on a SK kick right now (though I typically just prefer reading his short stories). I’m sure once I’m finished reading all his short story collections I’ll move on to something new.
I have very intense interests that fizzle fairly quickly.
Do you have ADD? My nine-year-old son does, and has always been a kid that doesn’t just like things- he becomes obsessed with them. His first fascination was with Regis Philbin, when he was 2. It was strange. Another of his obsessions is the now-canceled TV show Fear Factor. He has the t-shirts, game, magnets, books, seasons on DVD, and watches it online as much as I’ll let him.
Just yesterday I mentioned this fact about him to the nurse practitioner that prescribes his medication, and she said that it was very common to people with ADD.
Hmm, that bit about ADD makes a bit of sense, I suppose.
I do this quite a bit, to the point of it annoying the heck out of my wife.
A few years back it was Absinthe. Reading about it, reading reviews of brands, finding out how to get it in the US (grey market)… the whole 9 yards. Never did actually TRY some, but yeah…
Just recently it was Straightrazor shaving. Got a razor, strop, mug, shave about once a week right now. Totally obsessed with it, but I can feel the obsession ebbing. Not sure what’s next.
Last year - the year in which my 40th birthday fell - was the turning point for me. I made a conscious decision to stop creating imaginary lists of all the silly little things that might be interesting to try and instead just go ahead and do them.
I suppose that’s what you call a mid-life crisis, although mine is a pretty benign case - and it happens to have provided most of the content for my website - www.atomicshrimp.com
