"Immortal" thoughts, Part I
Jan. 27th, 2006 05:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bironicThinky thoughts generated from watching "Immortal"! Run and hide!
Part I --
Where do you draw the line between obsession and interest? Or, when do you call interest excessive?
Since at least high school I've dealt with repeated comments from a variety of people that I get (too) obsessive about things. It's treated like a fault, if an amusing one. I can see where they're coming from when a new or particularly strong obsession hits me and I revel in thinking about it (whatever it is) or discussing it with people, leading to accusations that I'm spaced-out, distant or talking about it too much. When I find something I like, I want to know everything about it, and I dig in until I'm glutted. Most of the time this leads in turn to several new avenues to explore.
I've long wondered why this is seen as somehow wrong or unhealthy. When an "obsession" could as well be called "intense interest" (already the term invites a more positive interpretation) and doesn't disrupt but rather enriches one's life, why can't it be seen as a constructive trait? Reading recently about the theories behind education of gifted children, where students are encouraged to pursue subjects in as great a depth as they please based on wherever their interests lead rather than on a pre-set curriculum, I've been thinking not only that that sounds ideal for someone with obsessive tendencies, given adequate supervision (i.e. a teacher willing and able to guide the student to move on when it's time and persuade her/him to study something s/he might not like), but that it sounds like what I've been doing since school ended: following my own meandering interests in whatever directions and at whatever pace I want, soaking in information on a variety of topics, and learning and remembering it twice as well because I want to know it, not because someone else wants me to know it or because there's going to be an exam.
I could cite lots of examples, but let's go with "Immortal" since it's on the brain. I felt a little silly, a little guilty, a little childish posting the past few days about the swiftness of finding out about and going out of my way to see the movie, about my recent adoration of Thomas K., and then this morning realized it's mostly growing out of this residual shame about being excitedly, furiously interested in something all of a sudden. But why be ashamed? Why not take advantage of the energy rather than trying to quash or hide it? It doesn't matter how long the interest lasts; enjoy it while it's there.
When I read that New Yorker article I visualized a gifted child's education in the same way I see the paths that lead to and from the movies and books and academic subjects that have piqued my interest: as the trunk of a tree branching off or as an artery splitting into capillaries. My interest in "Immortal" can claim a proud lineage back to the Vampire Chronicles that inspired my parents' initial concern about my acting distant. One cascade of branches led here -- from the Chronicles trunk/artery to the "Queen of the Damned" movie, which branched into a mini-marathon of Vincent Perez movies, which joined with the Romantic literature branch to lead me to rent "Frankenstein," which branched into an interest in Thomas K., hence "Immortal," all rooted in 1997 and budding again last night. Now a new handful of branches exists, some promising to be fruitful, some one-time fact lookups: Enki Bilal comics, the Croatian plum brandy Slivovica (see next post), the band Sigur Rós (ditto) and already after it a linguistic curiosity about Icelandic, thinky thoughts and posts like this one. With each so-called obsession, whether slow- or fast-burning, comes an invigorating influx of new subjects -- can this really be bad?
Part I --
Where do you draw the line between obsession and interest? Or, when do you call interest excessive?
Since at least high school I've dealt with repeated comments from a variety of people that I get (too) obsessive about things. It's treated like a fault, if an amusing one. I can see where they're coming from when a new or particularly strong obsession hits me and I revel in thinking about it (whatever it is) or discussing it with people, leading to accusations that I'm spaced-out, distant or talking about it too much. When I find something I like, I want to know everything about it, and I dig in until I'm glutted. Most of the time this leads in turn to several new avenues to explore.
I've long wondered why this is seen as somehow wrong or unhealthy. When an "obsession" could as well be called "intense interest" (already the term invites a more positive interpretation) and doesn't disrupt but rather enriches one's life, why can't it be seen as a constructive trait? Reading recently about the theories behind education of gifted children, where students are encouraged to pursue subjects in as great a depth as they please based on wherever their interests lead rather than on a pre-set curriculum, I've been thinking not only that that sounds ideal for someone with obsessive tendencies, given adequate supervision (i.e. a teacher willing and able to guide the student to move on when it's time and persuade her/him to study something s/he might not like), but that it sounds like what I've been doing since school ended: following my own meandering interests in whatever directions and at whatever pace I want, soaking in information on a variety of topics, and learning and remembering it twice as well because I want to know it, not because someone else wants me to know it or because there's going to be an exam.
I could cite lots of examples, but let's go with "Immortal" since it's on the brain. I felt a little silly, a little guilty, a little childish posting the past few days about the swiftness of finding out about and going out of my way to see the movie, about my recent adoration of Thomas K., and then this morning realized it's mostly growing out of this residual shame about being excitedly, furiously interested in something all of a sudden. But why be ashamed? Why not take advantage of the energy rather than trying to quash or hide it? It doesn't matter how long the interest lasts; enjoy it while it's there.
When I read that New Yorker article I visualized a gifted child's education in the same way I see the paths that lead to and from the movies and books and academic subjects that have piqued my interest: as the trunk of a tree branching off or as an artery splitting into capillaries. My interest in "Immortal" can claim a proud lineage back to the Vampire Chronicles that inspired my parents' initial concern about my acting distant. One cascade of branches led here -- from the Chronicles trunk/artery to the "Queen of the Damned" movie, which branched into a mini-marathon of Vincent Perez movies, which joined with the Romantic literature branch to lead me to rent "Frankenstein," which branched into an interest in Thomas K., hence "Immortal," all rooted in 1997 and budding again last night. Now a new handful of branches exists, some promising to be fruitful, some one-time fact lookups: Enki Bilal comics, the Croatian plum brandy Slivovica (see next post), the band Sigur Rós (ditto) and already after it a linguistic curiosity about Icelandic, thinky thoughts and posts like this one. With each so-called obsession, whether slow- or fast-burning, comes an invigorating influx of new subjects -- can this really be bad?
