How do you choose your special interest?

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My first special interest was reading. I would always read books at the library. And I always read the newspaper.

Then I was obsessed with numbers and math. Multiplication tables were awesome.

I had other interests that weren't obsessive, such as pro wrestling and radio music.

Then I was obsessed with sports. I always had to read the sports section of the newspaper.

One time I was obsessed with nutrition. There was a computer program called 5 A Day, and it was cool beans.

My next special interest was video games. My first system was Game Gear. Then I got the Nintendo 64. Game over for me.

My next special interest was history. I had to know about the history of the world.

My next special interest was chess. I started at 8, stopped at 10, started again at 14, but didn't become obsessed until I was 17.

Video games was obsessive until I was 18. Then I transitioned into Internet. It was like video games, only educational, and communicative.

My most enjoyable special interest was people. I would call it psychology, but that's not it. It's just people, and how we work, and what we want, and how we learn. The scientific stuff never interested me much because I do not wish to control anybody.

My least enjoyable special interest was my ex girlfriend. I was one step away from being a stalker, that last step being me having a heart. Its like the difference between coveting and cheating: Coveting takes place in the mind. To be fair, we kind of stalked each other, but that's beside the point.

I never really chose my special interests. I just let my interests guide me. I do not control myself.

for me, special interests are like a taste for a certain style of thinking, and it sort of "scratches an itch" in my "central processor". most of my special interests are internal mechanisms of thought that have little use in real life.
my main special interest is patterns. i have always been fascinated with patterns. when i was about 7, i was watching waves at a beach, and i noticed the smaller wavelets that propagated in their own directions accros the face of the main wave, and i then noticed ripples that propagated similarly through the wavelets on the face of the wave, then i noticed ripplets on the ripples on the wavelets on the waves, and i realised that the dimensional process of wave energy extends infinitely into a macrocosm and microcosm of interrelated expression, and i found it to be like a sponge that could soak up all of my available mind in comfort.

i have never been able to describe the process of my contemplation because i think it would require an astronomical amount of words to convey, but i have tried to portray my own internally generated (and visualised) wave systems with pictures. i wrote a series of programs to handle the production of my own generated ideas of complex wave systems, and i have been told that i am thinking in fractals, and so i realize that i am not the only person who is interested in subsets and supersets. they are truly astonishing if one can see how there can be no interaction between subsets of the overall system, and yet the overall system is complete in it's validity.

patterns dominate my daily consciousness. i always see patterns in even things that can not be said to be consistent or organized.

i have a minor special interest in music because i can see the pattern of most songs and so i do not need to learn how to play them. musical patterns translate directly into key presses on the keyboard for me. i have no "tender soul", so my renditions sound mechanical and rigid. i have not made publicly available my own compositions (except for about 3 which were rather experimental) because complicated musical ideas i think of are not things i wish to discuss.

special interests are interests that are manifest due to the inherently ideal cognitive ground they have to propagate in.

i have many secondary transient but intense interests, but they are just milestones i pass on my journey through life. special interests are inborn.

Cognitively driven patterns of thinking and cognitive inflexibility.
Wanting to pursue the same interest relentlessly and repetitively because it's a comforting and familiar pattern of thinking that takes over my brain.

My metaphors confuse a lot of people . It probably wouldn't confuse you if I did a diagram of it. I know that those two special interests are unrelated. I just got bored of web design, so my interest changed a lot. I got interested in discovering music which is way more related to my original interest in music than web design is. That change in interests made sense for me, but I know it doesn't make sense to other people.

I meant as in the idea of a tree. They don't often have a trunk and two big branches.
It also hurts my head to think about this.

My special interests always seem to choose me.

This describes the way my special interests work really well. Here's sort of how mine has gone:

Deep interest in music from the beginning
Then I got a guitar, that became my special interest
Then I got a bass, and it switched. Old guitar became too broken (it was old and in need of work when I got it)
Then there came a bunch of music genre interests I won't even dive into
Got another guitar, became very interested in that for many years
Then I got an upright bass, which then became the focus
Got a fretless electric bass, that became the focus
Having a fretless electric got me into converting basses and guitars to fretless
Which in turn got me into guitar repair and modification work
Which in turn got me into electronics
Which got me into fixing amps
Which got me out of fixing amps (lol)
Get an ocarina, get way into it.
Started playing keys, ended up barely playing guitar anymore. Bass special interest has been going strong the whole time.
Then I got a really nice keyboard (a Roland), and became obsessed with playing that. Didn't touch my guitars for a year and a half or so.
I get into Melodica
Randomly get back into guitar
Get a Gibson LP, get way into guitar again
Get a drum kit - get way into it, then I had to move somewhere I couldn't bring it or use it.
Start playing mandolin, but it quickly fades into occasional use.
Now I'm mainly focusing on bass, guitar, and keys.




This is similar to how music is for me. Each note, each chord, each key also has its own "feel" to me. I can't describe it. It's visual in my brain, but also emotional, and they can bring up lots of mental imagery almost like a story, or explaining a concept, on top of the strange shapes and hard-to-describe stuff going on in my mind as I play or listen. I pull deep meaning out of music even though there are no words being expressed, and I doubt the musician (unless it's me) actually intended that imagery.

Mine also choose me.

I also believe that my special interests choose me. I also cannot decide how intense of a special interest something will become. For my most intense special interests, I will think about them nonstop, and this is an involuntary process. The thoughts just pop into my brain. It's very much like how my OCD obsessions are, only the special interest thoughts are pleasant.

My cyclothymia severely affects my interests. When I down cycle into the depression, I stop or find it extremely hard at best to do anything with whatever the interest is. When I start my upcycle, I may stick with the last interest, or I may switch to another one. I've learned from this to limit myself to one of the interests I've previously had now are:

Jewelry crafting
Pyrography
Digital Art - Fractal & Abstract
Miniature Painting
Writing
Programming/Computers
Prop Making
Costuming
Cooking
Reading
Video Games
Firearms
Preparedness

The next thing is cost factors in. Some of these are very expensive. I put about 1400$ into building my FN FAL rifle alone among other firearms and related purchases. Probably spent well over a grand on all the items to craft jewelry, and I've sold maybe 200$ worth of pieces. I have to be very careful with cost. I'm hesitant now to do the expensive interests and hope everytime when I cycle, I don't go back into them. Maybe in the future, but definitely not now.

I didn't choose my special interests. I randomly discover something and become fascinated by it.

I think to get into an special interest simply happens on accident.

Star Wars: Until I was 11-12, we only had basic television (= 3 channels that focused more on information, and less on entertaining). When my parents got into satellite TV, one of the first stuff I saw were the Star Wars films. So that had a big impact on me. I found them rather cool. Because of that films I was interested in borrowing the game "Rebel Assault" for PC: That was as well rather cool. Because of me being a better reader then television watcher, I was interested in reading a bookform or Star Wars. By seeking for it, I accidantly learned about the existence of the Timothy Zahn trilogy novels. And they were as well rather cool.... XD In the end my mind was focused on that topic for a very long time...and then suddenly we got internet: And there were tons of Star Wars homepages with tons of informations about Star Wars.

So it was not on purpose, but by accident I ran into one thing of Star Wars into the other thing of it. If there had only been the films, or if I might have seen then not at an moment, where entertaining television was not that fresh to me, I think it would not have caught my interest.

So it needs to be something, that actually catches me very intense, but does as well not get boring for a long time.

So I am not into Pokemon, but I can understand, how it can the special interest of so many here, because there is as well much content about it.

Me too! I know many people already said this but it's true for me too. Trying to cultivate an interest in something just because I decide I'd like to be better educated on X topic or more well-rounded never works for me and neither does trying to end a special interest because it consumes too much of my time or I decide it's not good for me.

My interests have mainly revolved around reading and writing fiction and imaginary worlds/imaginary characters. My imaginary worlds used to just be the worlds in novel series I read or something similar. Now I'll combine two different imaginary worlds/ two different premises from two different series like The Wheel of Time and the Harry Potter worlds.

The more fact-based ones I've had (subjects I've obsessively collected facts about ) included etymology and root words (learning Latin and Greek roots) neurobiology, genetics, mental illness and autism. There was also my obsession with primatology and evolution and at another point an obsession with Spanish culture.I also used to spend an inordinate amount of time playing online Boggle and then Sudoku, the latter of which I still play.

It happens out of nowhere

My interests are mostly fact-based and tend to revolve around people. I've never been interested in individuals or controlling anyone/anything. I love learning and thinking about things like mental illness, cultures, and history.

For some reason I've never been interested in evolution, what led you to that obsession?

One of my recurring special interests is Being Useful, What People Think, and Being Appealing to the Outside World. Like many other posters said this branches off into stuff relating to that such as music that is popular, self improvement or politics. But I also try to push my interests toward the direction of trying to make more money.