Feel free to substitute any word for “excite” indicating “stirs strong emotion.”
I have a very comfortable life. I have hobbies - golf, biking, playing music, reading, and enough friends and family. I don’t think of myself as depressed - I don’t fail to get out of bed in the morning, and I do my job, household chores, stay reasonably fit, and socialize w/ people over golf and music. But I can’t think of a single thing that really excites me. I kinda just go through the motions, filling time w/ pleasurable but unmemorable activities.
How about you? Anyone feel the same? If so, does it bother you to feel that way? Do you try to change?
Of if you regularly feel strong emotions, what spurs the?
I saw " Godzilla vs. Kong" on Saturday at one of those modern theaters where you have complete surround sound, massive vibration, and reclining seats. It was pretty darn awesome.
Years ago my wife bought me one of those “drive a few laps around a parking lot in an exotic sports car” things. I drove a Lamborghini and a Ferrari. That was pretty exciting. I don’t even remember what models they were, but I can honestly say it was absolutely the most fun I’ve ever had driving in circles around a parking lot.
My wife and I love to travel. We’ve been to all 50 states and over 30 countries. It isn’t just the traveling itself that excites us but the planning too. The whole “pursuit of happiness” thing.
The pandemic is absolutely killing us. With the exception of Galena and KC we haven’t been to much of anywhere outside of camping in Northern Minnesota. We’re craving an ocean/beach visit.
I have 3 weeks of left over vacation time that I have to burn off in May and early June. We’re planning an east coast excursion. Starting in Virginia Beach and ending in Miami with several points in between. All places we’ve already been to but not for quite a few years.
The planning and waiting for the time to come has us completely giddy with excitement.
Thanks for the responses. I guess I was thinking about what excites you on an ongoing basis. I mean, there might be a limit on how many times you can watch monster movies or drive exotic cars!
I used to get a real rush when I did a lot of MMA. Not much catches your attention more than someone trying to punch you in the face. But that is a young person’s game. And I used to really get a rush out of paintballing w/ 2 of my kids. Most recently, I really enjoyed a trip to Joshua Tree a year ago. Scrambling over those rocks w/ my rockclimber kid made me feel like a kid on a playground.
But the day to day, month to month stuff …
Travel really does nothing for me. My wife prefers it, and this summer she’s going to Iceland w/ a friend. My idea of travel is driving to a state park, and hiking w/ my wife and dog. Very pleasant, but not exciting. We spend a lot of time at a family cabin on a lake. Again, very pleasant swimming, hiking, playing music - but pretty much the antithesis of exciting.
I’m kind of like the OP as well. I don’t think I’m depressed, I manage to do the day to day things I need to do, and I do still enjoy the ordinary pleasures of life like food and drink, but it’s been awhile since anything, or the upcoming prospect of anything, really excited me.
When I was much younger, a good movie would be magical to watch, and would leave a lasting impression on me. Now 99% of any movies, TV shows or any form of entertainment are more or less ‘meh’.
I would like to travel, and the prospect of a nice vacation destination might excite my imagination, but pandemic aside, we have a son with some emotional issues that make him difficult to travel with, so we haven’t gone anywhere on vacation in a long time.
Sea slugs and other weird creatures excite me. I’ve been playing this fantastic underwater survival game called Subnautica and it’s a veritable festival of weird sea creatures. There’s a fish that’s basically one giant eye - they’re called Peepers, and every time I see one I get excited.
Writing excites me periodically. When I’m on a roll and in a flow state and don’t want to stop for anything - that’s exciting. Haven’t felt that in a long time though. Lately it’s just a slog.
Now that a lot of us are vaccinated I’m excited to see some of my friends and family in May. My husband’s Mom is coming to visit on Thursday and that’s exciting. She’ll be meeting her 13 month old grandson for the first time. We are pretty starved for social interaction so it’s probably 10x more exciting than it would be otherwise.
ETA: I do have chronic depression so these things aren’t always exciting. But at the moment they are.
The idea of travel excites me more than the actuality. Not sure there are many places that make my mood worse than airports.
I thought of another. I used to get excited about a music camp I attended each year, where I learned a lot and got to play w/ a lot of high caliber players. But that was cancelled last year and this.
I regularly get to play music w/ some really talented folk - but it is almost the sort of thing where I have such ready access to this, that I sorta take it for granted.
I play golf regularly w/ a really good group of friends. But I’m not the golfer I used to be and am not inclined to put forth the effort to work on the game, travel for golf, etc. Very pleasant pastime, but just part of the routine.
And I bike w/ my sister 2-3x/week. Again, very pleasant, but just something to do to pass the time and slow the decay of this carcass.
I get excited when I know my Grandsons (11 & 13) are coming over to spend the weekend with us. We have an absolute ball. The younger one is a splitting image of my son in looks, mannerisms, and personality. It’s actually eerie.
I’m excited that motorcycle riding season is upon us. We put at least 5K on our bike every summer which isn’t bad considering the weather in this part of the country.
I’m excited to get my Corvette out of storage next week. It’s not a great winter car.
I own a business that excites me to no end. I have employees that do most of the actual work so the fun stuff is for me.
Last week I was at a coastal nature preserve with my family and another family whose kids are similar ages. I saw (and identified) several birds for the first time: a tricolor heron who was the same teal color as the paint on a swimming pool, and a brown pelican with a killer mohawk, and a lesser yellowlegs, and a red-headed woodpecker. I got to show these birds to everyone else.
Today I taught a bunch of third graders about Mobius strips and showed them how to draw lines down the middle and how to cut them lengthwise–and the room filled with gasps and “oh my gods” and at least one “What dark magic is this?”
Seeing awesome things in nature, and teaching folks things: these are what excite me.
I love to travel. Backpack for a few months at a time. Somewhere where I’ll see things I couldn’t have imagined, experience things hands on, encounter people whose path I might never have crossed.
It’s seeing things/experiences through new eyes, is incredibly exciting. The plotting and fore planning for such journeys is also very exciting in a tantalizing kind of way. You can never be certain what wonders will reveal themselves to you. The ones you came to see, or the ones you could not have known of?
Volcanoes are pretty interesting, there’s tons to learn about and from them. There are wonderful documentaries, volumes of books going back decades, and new research coming out continually.
But after you’ve climbed up a couple of volcanoes, no matter how studied you may be, they will be a zillion times more exciting. You will see volcanoes through new eyes.
Whether two months or ten, of adventuring, whenever I return home, there will always also be things, I’m my own and most familiar culture, that I will see with new eyes. It’s difficult to describe but it’s an exciting and heady experience.
It’s a hard time for travellers, no one is sure what the world will look like when this is all over. Will airfares double? Triple? How many airlines will be left standing? What kind of restrictions will be in place, etc, etc. It’s just wait and see.
Successfully completing some of my art work excites me. It’s a special thrill to stand back and ponder, “Gee, I did that!”
Learning something new on the cello.
It used to be travel, back when I was still physically able to. Not just the traveling itself, but the weeks of planning. I once planned a 6-week trip through 25 towns in souther France, including all the scheduling on Eurail, and what to see/do in each town.
Track days. Like these or these. If you aren’t excited coming out of a straight at 120 mph, slowing to 50 and ripping through a corner, you’re probably dead.
This might be the year that I start crapcan endurance racing in the 24 Hours of Lemons series.
And in a few years or decades when asked “what excited you? Those students are going to remember you and those Möbius strips. That is the very definition of amazing.
Hey - we could use a cello! I’ve been trying to play the cello parts of these ensemble pieces on bass - w/ varying degrees of success! We just lined up a viola, which should be exciting.
I’ve been playing some very different styles of music. I get a great feeling of accomplishment over that.
Yeah - that gets to my - um - issue w/ so much of mental health diagnosing pathologies, as opposed to moods/personalities. But we don’t have to go there. Sorry I used the term myself.
I think of myself as lazy and not doing anything. But as I was just mowing the lawn over lunch, I thought of what I’ve done the past few days.
Thurs aft: visited w/ my dtr/granddtrs
Fri aft: biked 20 miles w/ my sister
Fri eve: played musice for 3 hrs w/ my wife and a friend
Sat morn: golfed 9 holes
Sat aft: visited and played cards w/ another couple
Sun morn: golfed 9 holes
Sun eve: had dinner/played cards w/ sister/BIL
Mon aft: going biking shortly
Mon eve: playing music w/ my band
My job gets me pretty excited. I’m currently putting together a webinar on the history of pot distilling Bourbon. It’s fascinating how people used to make whiskey and the way we can incorporate their methods today. Separately, I’m working on recreating a still that made 80+% of rye whiskey in the late 1800s and then disappeared with prohibition. We’re done engineering the still and beging construction in another month. This summer we’ll be using it to distill ryes and then comparing our output to the chemical analysis of those original stills once we get that right we’ll mature some spirit and then we’ll be chemically analysis our spirit against some of the original spirit that survived prohibition and doing a comparison tasting as well. On the humdrum side of my job I’m working with a new client to design a barrel house for their off the grid distillery to maximize their maturation profile and working to restore a brewery building from 1850 to serve as an incubator for 3 modern craft breweries. I have an amazing job.
Outside of work I’m getting my garden going and this year I get to plant a bunch of Korean vegetable that I’ve missed since I moved away from Korea and this fall I’ll be making three types of kimchee and my own gojuchang. I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to have a chousok party at my house this fall. I’m planning several weekend fly-fishing expeditions around Colorado this summer with my brother-in-law(s) and that will be amazing.
I’m still in my late 30s but there are lots of things to get excited about.
