How hard do you pursue your special interest?

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Let's see if I can post a non-boring or negative thread and how long it lives

How driven are you to acquire every molecule of information about your favorite interests? Pre-Internet I used to gather up my data from books, and still do occasionally. Mostly these days I look on W'pedia and get sort of bummed when the info isn't as thorough as I hoped it would be, OTOH if a side interest is TOO thorough, I can't process it all at once and have to skim the content.

One of my longest interests in music is where I like to not only know what studio an album was recorded at, what equipment the musicians used down to the strings, plectra, drumsticks and cables, but also it's where I want to know what was going through their minds as they were recording. Most of the time I'm fortunate if I can find out where they recorded and what the song was about, if anything.

Lately another interest is that I'm trying to learn all the possible parts interchangeability between small engines, and it seems as though me trying to determine the diameter of a certain connecting rod bearing is akin to getting my hands on the launch codes for all of the Titan II missiles in North America - I scour Google constantly and have come to the conclusion that if anyone else in the world has already measured that bearing, they're bent on keeping it to themselves, which drives me butthurt considering how I post my findings for others' benefit.
So needless to say I often 'hit a wall' in my thirst for input. Thankfully it only rates about a '4' on my annoyance meter so I hardly ever get a meltdown over it. Between this and ADHD though, it does lead to a lot of unfinished projects.

Do you go this far with wanting to know about your interest? How do you deal with the disappointment from inability to obtain knowledge?

I find that I learn all there is to something, and then I go over it again (again and again and again and again and again and again without ever getting bored).

Back in the day, when I was a wee lad, someone introduced me to KISS. Not the band personally, just KISS in general. I went to see them at the Garden and I was hooked for life. I just had to have me a guitar, so-
1. I pestered me ma and, with $19 in hand, bought my first axe - a red, white & blue Al Hambra acoustic guitar.
2. I carried that axe around everywhere. I had no case so I simply walked around with it like that. "Here comes guitar man!"
3. I got my hand on a Django Reinhardt book and learned tons of chords, even the fancier jazz ones I never encountered in any pop or rock book anywhere.
4. I got my hand on the 1st Jimi Hendrix album, listened to it all the way through, learned a few things and returned the album to the library. My co-worker was surprised I learned them that quickly. I told her they didn't seem hard to me. What was I missing? Oh, yeah. Feedback!
5. I went to see a guitar instructor but he told me there was nothing he could teach me as I'd learned a lot since I first picked up the instrument 6 months before.
6. I started writing instrumental pieces, influenced strongly by Nancy Wilson from Heart and the Rev. Gary Davis' blues fingerpicking style of playing.
7. I started developing a feedback technique where it sounded like two people playing at one. That was cool.
8. I also started making my own amps out of found parts, mainly pre-amps and/or amps wired in series.
9. This building of things also including building bikes (or trucks as the neighborhood goons called them).
10. I poured myself into learning theory and other styles when I went to college. This guy even gave me a Gibson ES-335 because he thought I was worthy of it. (Little ol' me?! I turned it down).
11. I studied classical music and the styles of guitarists like Richie Blackmore, Eddie Van Halen, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend, Alex Lifeson, Rik Emmet and many others.
12. I learned additional theory and chordal positions by watching videos, especially those of The Who, by biggest influence.
13. A budding luthier, I also deconstructed electric guitars and built new ones from the resulting parts. Changing machine heads was my favourite thing to do as stock ones were usually garbage.
14. I played in a few bands as a guitarist, then when MIDI came along, switched over to keyboards. My first, a KORG DW8000, would occupy me for the next few years.
15. My latest keyboard is a KORG SV-1, bought about 25 years after that DW8000.
16. So far, I've since seen KISS twice and Paul Stanley once at The Ritz in NYC.

yup samehere, i always to do the same thing over again! i know how about like this in java =(

for(int x = 0; x <= 500; x++)
{

System.out.println("Again =(");
}

My special interest/s pursue me

My interests tend to be quite transient. Recently I went from learning the relevant letters of the International Phonetic Alphabet to the English language, to learning Morse code, to doing arithmetic in base 12. I can easily revisit any of these subjects. My interests are always incredibly narrow.

My interests typically start out of nowhere... memory of a bit of conversation I once overheard or a random fact spit out by a professor in class at one point. I go to Wikipedia first and like the originator of this post said, I get "bummed when the info isn't as thorough as I hoped it would be," but on the other hand "if a side interest is TOO thorough, I can't process it all at once and have to skim the content." From there I will I chase knowledge down every avenue I can until I hit road blocks, which more often than not is relatively quickly since I tend to latch onto subjects that have little or no major scholarship attributed to them. When I was into early American Roots Music I typically found dead end after dead end in trying to understand where the music actually came from and the people who put it down on wax. In the history field, which is my major special interest field, I tend to linger on areas or people who don't have a bajillion books written about them; for example I'm more likely to want to read about the life and military career of someone like Theophilus Holmes over the life of say... Abraham Lincoln.

My search for information about my interests often leaves me frustrated and wanting more.

I pursue my interests almost every waking hour of every single day and have so done all my life. On not finding what I need, I tend to go through extensive experimentation / trial and error, until I either come across what I want, or re-invent it from scratch. Failing that, I move to a different area of pursuit.

lol...

I browse C# tutorials on how to make simple games and learn by repeating the tutorials and then also experiment on my own. I'm currently following one on youtube: "How to make a 2D Space Shooter". Frankly, I'm learning more quickly that way than using my college books.

Sample:

I hereby *THIS* your statement.

The ADHD part of me dictates that once I've mastered something it's time to put it to bed for a while, this presents as a major source of annoyance at band members who have heard a song hundreds of times yet abort a great take because 1 person forgot their place or flubbed 1 lyric

OTOH I can sit and obsess about a new friend rather than self-injure over information denial, otherwise I look for ways to dig through the mountain rather than tthe thought of scaling its heights only to reach the other side emptyhanded

I was like that somewhat. I ended up volunteering on a pit crew rebuilding a race engine every week. Being detail oriented is a plus. Always the same model engine but I ended up knowing an awful lot about chevy engines.

The engine in my Fiero has is a bored and stroked 3.2 liter V-6. It has pre 1964 327 V8 rod bearings and post 1987 350 V8 cam bearings. Pushrod guides and rocker arms are 1989 corvette 350, guide posts from 454 V8 GMC, oil pump is buick 305 V8. ECM is 1991 cavalier. Wheels are 1987 beretta.
Block is red, heads are green, intake is red, car is black, wheels are bright red.

That was more fun than just about any one project I have ever done.
All the engine is old school pushrod, newer engines do not have the interchangable parts as much anymore. CNC machining at the factory makes it too easy for custom applications for better economy. My Fiero gets poor miles per gallon.

It is parked in the garage and I do not drive anymore.

Poetic. Its a classic case of aspergers where the details are more fascinating. Stuff the mountain, whats the mineral content??? ... I love it.