How do your obsessions develop?

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How do your obsessions develop? Particularly the shorter-lived obsessions that last a few days/weeks/months, rather than the ones that last a lifetime.

Do they spring out of nowhere - suddenly something you'd never been that interested in becomes absolutely fascinating? Or is it something that you've always had an interest in, and that interest gradually builds and builds until one day you realise it has become a full-blown obsession?

I've done both. I have no idea from whence my Marx Brothers fascination sprang, especially considering I'm not all that interested in that era and usually don't have the attention span for feature-length films. I don't even remember how I discovered them.

On the other hand, I've done papier mache on and off for years without getting obsessed with it (I wanted to learn pottery but didn't have the money for lessons, clay or a wheel, and it seemed the next best thing) but just lately has that started to grow into an obsession with kinds of paper, textures, colours, ways of working with it..,

The thing about an interest building up into an obsession is what happened to me, last year with Routemasters. I still love them. I just don't think about them all the time, like I did last year.

Usually I become obsessed with something I had hear about or loved a long time ago--I feel the need to learn more information about it. The funny thing is that I often lose my interest in a subject as quickly as I got it.

obsessions can brew up or pop out at anygiven time.
thats what makes them so intresting.

My obsession with cars began when I got the PS2 game 'Midnight Club 2', and all the cars were closely resembling real cars but none were licensed, and I tried to name all the cars to what real cars they are based on.

Me too. Seems my major interests as an adult have a connection to an interest i had when much younger.i was programming at 11 yrs old which lasted until i left school. then no interest in it for 15 yrs, then got the obsession back again and ended up in a job as a programmer. similar thing with electronics, no job in that yet though . although dropping an obsession (not really dropped but filed away for later of course) after maxing out the joint credit card doesnt go down well with your partner! thank god for online shopping

Usually, my obsessions are spawned by something I see.

Tim

Usually mine start by reading about a subject or watching a documentary program. My interest in Roger Bannister began on a small scale when I got interested in the Olympics when I was 20 years old. It really took off after I watched the movie Four Minutes and read The Perfect Mile. I was impressed by his accomplishments in life. The thing that impresses me most about Bannister is that he is an overall success in life, something I aspire to be someday.

I’ll usually, do something or see something and then just instantly become obsessed with it.

I do this often too.
I learn everything about a certain object, time frame, person, whatever. Than, once all possibilities and knowledge is exhausted I leave it. Move on to something else and eventually overtime something triggers the memory and I come back to it. My obsessions work in spurts and kind of repeat themselves over time or I discover something even more grand in which I've always been naturally good at or fascinated with.

Like my obscenely huge obsession with Nerve Agents which is less heavy now, stemmed from my love for war and science.

The temporary ones tend to come out of nowhere. They may last a few days to several months. But there are also lifelong ones, a couple of which I really wish I could get out from under.

My long term obsessions come from seeing things or reading about stuff. As a child I had an obsession about gymnastics. I was outside all day every day practicing and eventually could do a backflip After that i lost interest. I also just had to learn to play this one song on the piano, I dont have a piano
tho but id play other ppls pianos and i tought myself, beginning with the note c and worked on from there lol. My shortterm obsessions R abit different. I at one time needed to read everything about Nostradamus for example. But there was this 1 particular book i was obsessed with for about a year
I wouldnt take part in the every day life because i had to read it again and again. Eventually my mom hid it from me But for me the most annoying one is that i Need to draw speciffic things. When i really want to draw a picture of something i dont finish it and start with my obsession drawings. Therefore i cant ever Finish what I myself really wanna do

my obsession with the American flag began the very day that i bought one for myself... i cant evern remember why i bought that flag. i think maybe seeing and american having one hung in view of his webcam and we chatted about it..... i think thats what it was... it a obsession thats lasted a year so far and also has had other avenues of obession sprung off of it such as collecting patriotic music- this is about 95% of the music i listen to these days and finding out where all the states in america are locate and theire state flags state songs and also a general vexillological interest in world flags. i also have a strong deSire to live in the USA but this has been like this since i was about 12 years old so not really connected with the obsession
the obsession would go wild if i lived in the states though seeing all those flags flying everywhere

usually if i have money. cause then i want to buy, buy buy. im worse than a woman when it comes to shopping

I think most of mine build over time. It starts with something catching my eye, and thinking "boy that is neat!" And then I just think about it a little more every day, until I find myself "obsessed"

Although shorter interests can come on more strongly, they result in an "intense" study, but usually I am just as happy to "dump it" after a given period of time.

I don' t have any lifelong ones, although I do have an intermittent obsession with video-editing. That was sparked by my friend showing me some fan videos some people had made. I decided, "I want to do that too." That was it. I went to my school's media lab, learned the programs, and started editing. I actually got hired to work at the lab because of my in-depth knowledge of a particular program that most people weren't too familiar with.

All my obsessions besides that one have been shorter lived- often no more than a week or two, sometimes as much as a few months. Those usually pop out of nowhere. Like, I decided that Braille was cool. Okay, so I taught myself Braille. Then I lost interest. I haven't picked up a Braille book in years. I decided I wanted to build my own computer. Okay, two or three intensive weeks of 10+ hour days learning about computers. Built a computer. The obsession ended. Sometimes they are triggered by outside events, like wanting to learn Gaelic after visiting Dublin. That one lasted about two weeks. Sometimes I'll also go on mad memorizing kicks, where I'll just memorize tons of poems, or country capitals, or Morse code, or something like that. Those usually aren't triggered by anything.

I think it's Aspies, rather than NLDers, who tend to have the long-term, more intense obsessions. Most of the time I don't have any obsessions going on. Maybe one or two a year, that's all.

Last edited by LostInSpace on 27 Apr 2007, 3:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.