Competing obsessions

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Does anyone have a problem with competing obsessions? My obsessions can be in quite different fields, I wouldn't say opposite because they can be complimentary, but one always has to be dominant for practical reasons. I've been drawn towards a particular direction, which I'm really buzzing about but sort of annoyed I have to carve up my time. I have a long list of potential interests that I can think about for years without getting round to start, If ever do. You can't do everything I suppose I don't really fit into the narrow interest mould at all. Sometimes I wonder if I'm loosing my mind, especially during a creative run.

Yes! That has been a serious problem for me for the past ten years. The competition is between the arts and the sciences. The winner will become my career.

Taking extra classes didn't help me to make up my mind, so I thought I should "compromise" by becoming a librarian. Now I know I do want to make a career out of one of my obsessions. I'm trying to decide whether I want to:

-become a tattoo artist
-put more effort into music and writing
-get a PhD in neuroscience
-become a veterinarian
-become a pathologist
-become a wildlife biologist

I might try to go to school for a biology-related field while playing music as a hobby, but if I want to do well at both, I probably won't have time for anything else, including sleep.

Holy f**k! I'm in the same predicament. Science does sort of compete with my creative side. Right now my creative is dominant. They needn't have to compete, I'm angry with myself that they do. I suppose it is because I don't always like the conventional overlaps or am not good at them.

Except I think the whole idea of 'career' is bollocks, they had it right first time in the renaissance. I have too many things I want to do to have a career. 'Career' has put more people into middle management that anything else, and there is a whole load of people training to do things they don't care about. There isn't skill shortage at all, more a shortage of people willing to stay in the position they started with the same pay and conditions. The exceptions are things like scientific research and creative fields, where they can actually empower them sometimes. Not nearly enough IMO.

I only have one major interest at a time in general. As a kid, they were more science oriented - rocks and amphibians mostly. Then it was siamese cat stuff. Then a brief LOTR obsession. Then "The Nanny" - longest and most intense. Then "That 70s show." Now "House." I actually had 2 competing obsessions for a little while - the TV writers strike and House. House was much more intense, but the writers strike was a lesser interest - I was so interested as to how it would play out that I wanted it to happen, but that comes at the expense of halting House's production. But I always have only one dominant obsession, and the rest are more like interests. However, I don't usually give up previous obsessions entirely - if a news story about The Nanny comes up I'll read it, but I no longer am part of that community.

Yeah, I agree with you about "careers", but I need a way to make a living. I've been scraping by on minimum wage for far too long. It's interesting that you said that scientific research and creative fields give you more power because those are my options, basically.

Those traditional fields that combine art and science don't appeal to me either. To me, they're not artistic or scientific. They're something else that doesn't fit with my interests.

I don't go back and forth between art and science; I think about both every day. I'd really like to be able to have two jobs, a creative one and a scientific one, but I'm not expecting that to be possible.

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