Small Realization about Obsessions

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I am not sure if anyone has noticed this (they probably have and it is just not talked about), but it seems my obsessions stem from a possible need. For example, I tend to get obsessed about mathematics or computer programming when I feel I am not challenged intellectually in life. But then when I drive myself exhausted, I tend to find myself obsessing about chess or drawing... something light more or less.

Lately I have been taking computer courses online and obsessing hard about learning Linux and teaching myself web development and Python Programming to the point where I am stressing that I am not learning well enough. All of this is on top of a stressful full time job and a family. I am at the point of exhaustion even though I have tried multiple times to tell myself to slow down... Just today I find I cannot stop thinking about Chess and getting my defunct web comic up and running and shunning all things computer programming... but the cool thing is everything I have taught myself in the last few months will help me make a better comic site.. So is in my psyche telling me to slow down and think about something lesser or is it just a convenient shift in obsessions?

Just wondering if anyone has thought about this before?

Sounds to me like maybe you are working really hard and your brain is telling you to slow down, and so it's picking obsessions that are calming or aren't as brain consuming.

I hadn't thought of it as a theory but I had lately been noticing that since I started wanting to get healthier and more active, and getting back to 'last known good configuration' I delved into all of the past 20 years of skateboarding that I tuned out heretofore, and since getting a gym membership I hyperfocus my training days on the act of going through all my sets, living those days as if that time is what I do all day and on non-workout days reading about dos-and-don'ts and various training theories, and when I am particularly emotionally fatigued, looking up data on classic cars and pioneering hard rock bands

Opinion Post:
I think people who get obsessions are people who thrive on high productivity. They/we gravitate towards things that have a high potential of having awesomely tedious stages that progress upward (similar to video games). For example, I was also obsessed with learning about computers -- hardware and software.

An Aside:
This was because I wanted to find out if it were possible to create nanotech that would function like a bee hive -- to replace hospitals. Every home could have a hive of nanotech doctor bees instead of a medicine cabinet (minus the buzzing).

My other obsessions were evolution (from different perspectives -- biology, geology, anthropology), electronics, human anatomy & physiology, home improvement construction, eco-landscaping ....

They all have something in common -- it takes a long time to gather the info needed to become an expert. People like us thrive on "uping levels". Every time we learn something new we feed the obsession and it grows. We get high and is hard to walk away from it.

I had an obsession with making connections to coincidental data, because I believed it was leading to to an ultimate truth. I may or may not have been wrong about it leading me to a truth, but I had to stop, because, even if it were leading me to an ultimate truth, it would take my entire life to get to it, or likely longer (similar to how it would take 10,000 times longer than the universe has existed to complete an algorithm for 2^N (N=100), given your computer could do 1 billion operations per second). Therefore, if it takes longer than my life to get the answer, it isn't worth doing unless there is someone to pickup where I left off after I died.

If you want an obsession to slow or stop, quit feeding it and it will eventually change into something else. I haven't found a way to stop obsessing completely, but I can channel it toward constructive and productive endeavors. I know I won't find a place I fit in to the US, because American society rewards extroverts too much and introverts not at all -- unless they can make the extroverts lots of money like the Facebook creator. (I secretly believe he & the company are being used by the American govt agencies to create records of everyone to use later for political and financial control -- knowledge about strengths and weaknesses is powerful and lucrative). I'm considering Germany to be a place where I fit in better. Their society seems to appreciate introverts and doesn't worship personal socializing (non-productive endeavors) as much. They have put forth a lot of effort toward developing a structured humane society since the time of Hitler. I have read many good things about Germany and want to find out if it is all true.

I think maybe your right. I only tend to get obsessions sometimes.
Also I'd like to see your Web comics.

For me, obsessions wax and wain like the tides. Birds was an obsession that started 20 years ago. Sometimes it's all I pay attention to, like right now for some reason when I am cross-referencing several books at the same time about the same species I am trying to learn about (I know there is such a thing as the internet, but I love books). Sometimes something like Sonic the Hedgehog comes up that grabs my attention for maybe a few years, but disappears.

I also have a phenomenon where I want to learn everything I possibly can about a topic. With birds, it is often looking at a field guide and noting a plumage characteristic that I never noticed before that helps separate the bird from closely related species. But the bird obsession started with just memorizing a bird field guide with no regard to where the bird lived, what it sounded like or other details that I eventually learned later.