The "high" from your special interest...

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^I wish you could buy an RV, and do what you did in your 20s.

the high i get is when i have extracted utility from the jaws of futility, when i have transformed a sow's ear into a silk purse or at least a fine quality handbag, speaking figuratively.

Rapping is more addictive than crack.

I did something crazy last night... I was going to go to bed... Then I decided to open up my computer and look at this one website I have a subscription to that has at least some information about each bird species in the world (all 10,700 of them...) anyway three hours later... Yeah, I spent a heck of a lot of time in one go late at night... I haven't done something like that in a while...

A trick that I learned on keeping down the collection of rare books/magazines but yet still have the information is to buy a very good scanner. Those that I cannot replace are the ones I scan first. I keep multiple copies of the scans in different backup locations. That way I can get rid of the book or magazine and invest the physical storage space into getting a copy of something that I really need to hold onto. I have finally learned that I have to avoid library book sales because I buy too much “junk” books that I just do not have space for. It is better if I just donate money to them instead.

For the record, I tend to collect special chemical information that is very hard to find as it could be misused in the wrong hands. My 1st ed. version of Poisons & Poisoners (1931) is one of my favorites to read. It will be going with me when I pass on to the grave. It contains many small knowledge pieces that are missing from modern chemical databases. The modern version of the book (1983) is lacking some of those details.

I find that I can get lost in my thoughts rather easily when dealing with my special interests. So, I try to limit thinking about them when I am busy working on other things. I will admit that I do think about them to get me through very long boring meetings and bad faculty talks. It is about the only way I can stay awake in some of those. Luckily, I can pay attention to what the speaker is saying while I quietly work on my ideas. I have made several breakthroughs with a pen and paper during meetings before, that was likely as close to a high as I have ever felt.