Special Interest: Where Did Yours Come From?

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construction vehicles- doing work right next to our house my dad took me to see the construction work being done and the foreman came up and it wAs one of the people my dad knew and they basically talked construction language for the next half hour but I watched the machines operate. The time after they stopped we sneaked onto the site and looked in the machines. I had became interested in them and asked him what everything was (typical for someonethat age). I looked at pictures and then eventually got to where I am now where I am learning to run them and repair them.

engines- My dad had bought a van with a diesel engine and had an old jeep with a v8 but it was interesting how they were different. When I looked at them I observed how my dad'svan and another customer had the same engine when I was young I said they make the same sound. The person said they are both diesel engines. I was also intereseted in his old jeep since someone put in an engine which was too big. The problem was how it was offered with 2 options of v6 or v8 originally but originally came with a v6 and someone put the v8 engine in it. The vehicle is now being restored with a 350 v8 ( just like what everyone has after a restoration.) This time around I became more active in looking into it to restore it.

To be honest, I'm not entirely too certain what led me to be interested in the things I am. I simply remeber the things as a child and being interested in them.

I keep searching my childhood for clues. It's all so asomatous, though. I find the most mysterious aspect is how one goes into another, seemingly dissimilar, one. The process, ostensibly random, feels almost magical.

I think there needs to be a LOT more research done on the development of special interests. It's a fascinating topic, and it's so puzzling how, across the board, most people with ASDs say that their special interests chose them, rather than them consciously choosing the special interest. It's like, WHY are we seemingly predisposed to being magnetically attracted to certain areas? What makes one Aspie drawn to transportation and another Aspie drawn to video games?

I know that, with special interest areas that developed when I was younger, I have less of an ability to explain why and how the special interest made me fixated. It's just like it was always there and I don't have words to describe it. Later special interests, while they still "choose me," often are connected to one of the broader special interest areas that began in my toddler/preschool years. For instance, my special interest in neuropsychiatry didn't begin until my teens, and anything mental illness-related captivates me today. However, all of this stems from my inherent, indescribable obsession with anatomy/physiology, which has been with me since age 3 or so. And within all of my special interests, no matter when they started, there ALWAYS is a smaller area of even more intense fixation. Like, within my Cedar Point special interest, my main focus is the Magnum XL-200. And within neuropsychiatry, it's bipolar-I psychotic mania. With I Love Lucy, it's very obscure, underrated parts of episodes nobody considers as "classic." All of these special interests within special interests have this bubbly, joyful, idealized quality whenever I think of them.

my primary one is herbs. i dont know where it came from. i remember doing lots of gardening as a kid and as an adult i keep finding bits of paper or stationary with plant names on them from when i was in primary school but i have no idea where it came from. i dont think there is ay rhyme or reason to my interests. i dont pick them, they dont come from anything i experience. if that were so i would be an astronomy and star trek nerd.

I've started doing this very thing and actually discovered that some relatives had one of the exact same interests. Even more odd, these were people I never knew terribly well.



As do I.

Had mine for years and years. Guess I heard about it somewhere and... it all went from there.

Speaking of which, I like "goofy" parts of nature.

Ala,

Is Drew your real name?

When I was little, I had a special interest in tobacco. Cigarette, specifically. My maternal grandfather used to smoke, and he was always very ill, and my fathers maternal grandfather also smoked and died of cancer. I would ask my parents why all the time, and I read about it. Whenever I would see a person smoke, I would move as far away from them as possible and never speak to them, even if they were relatives. They disgusted me very much. I would also stare at advertisements for cigarettes on the freeways or in magazines, and where they were displayed at the store.

My interest in royalty started with the Romanovs. I can't remember the first thing I read about them, but I began to read more and more, and it expanded into all their relatives.

My interest in Slavic cultures and environmentalism started with Captain Planet. One of the Planeteers, Linka is from the Soviet Union, so I began to read about cultures in Eastern Europe. I think I always had a little ingrained sense for environmentalism. Apart from the show, I would discuss environmental topics with my teachers when they spoke about how recycling. I remember I begged my parents that we should move to a farm, because of how dirty the air in the city was. It's like my interest in environmentalism has always been there, but it's been different things that have encouraged it that it's developed my most intense special interest. The other special interest that I've always had is cats.

Go on Flickr and search "treegina". I thought I made up that word for my photo, but there were several others.

Motorcycle sports - dad
Serial killers - parents had a collection of murder casebook magazines
Running - it started as something to do
Films - it was to do with there being a lot of films on over Christmas
Music - parents and a friend

I keep forgetting to put my 2 cents in on the topic.

Anyway, I got interested in costumes and uniforms as a little kid, joined the Girl Scouts just for the clothes. Then I got interested in ballet and theatre for the costumes--not making them, just admiring and wearing them. My mom wouldn't teach me how to work the sewing machine, so I didn't learn how to sew until college. I thought the Medieval costumes were the most beautiful ever, so that led to an interest in Medieval history, especially England, and also to an interest in womens' fashion in general, which led to a fascination with fabric. Unfortunately, I couldn't sew very well, so I tried knitting, et voila! I've been at it for over 10 years.

My main special interest is reading fiction. It started when I was at elementary school age and picked up a fantasy book my dad was reading. I was immediately hooked. For most of my life it has been specifically fantasy books, but some years ago I read a vampire novel (before Twilight, in case anyone wondered ) and my special interest switched to vampire books. Then earlier this year I found a book I liked in a different genre and now I'm completely obsessed with that. I don't even read the "old" special interest genres anymore even though there were some ongoing series I loved.

I also have a weaker interest in computer gaming and occasionally swing between reading all the time and playing all the time. We had computers even when I was really little and I've been playing as long as I can remember, so there isn't really any specific source for that one.

I was interested in computers about as far back as I can remember. I wanted to know how programs work to the lowest level. When I was 8 or so I learned about C but literally no one I knew did know anything useful about computers. Later in life I took a lot of drugs, basically understood how computers work and became obsessed with the idea of understanding and recreating the human mind inside a computer. Obviously hard science isn't ready for that, so I thought a lot about how to boil things down to a functional level at a purely mental approach, that is creating programmable abstractions of everything. I then realized that it would take about 20 years to program it and since then I try to get my life in order such that I can do it.

You'd be surprised. Watch the latest episode of the Science Channel's show Through the Wormhole. Just debuted last night. Probably available online at the Science Channel's website. The whole episode was about new technology making it theoretically possible to never die completely. Long section on some neuroscientist who thinks that we can scan/upload the whole brain (by way of thousands of miniscule brain slices) into a hard drive after physical death, so as to keep a person "alive" through cognition via computer. Very creepy, very unsettling, but very current and very enjoyable for you to watch!

Sometimes I feel like my special interests pick me. I will stumble across something and it will keep popping up in my life. Like its poking me. Its all research and reading after that.