Why are we interested in academics?

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Outside of basic school curriculum I'm talking specific subjects in schooling perhaps in college we try to learn everything we can about X topic and talk about it. Yet my parents dismiss it even denying the statistics from my textbook. "Oh those can lie those aren't always true." Also my interest in killers is taboo so I don't go talking about my Serial Murder or Profiling courses. Yet my little sisters 14 and 12 Elementary and Middle school (nearly high school) could care less!! !! Take them out of school and they wouldn't care! They don't come home rambling about academics OMG! excited I learned X!! !! To me it's so sad. Once I got ahead in college by about 3 weeks and got told by my older sister "That's stupid you should have stayed with everyone else." Also I read Moby Dick 10AM-2AM and got months ahead in the discussion board for it and was told "Stop replying and spoiling it since they hadn't got that far ahead." So I found the book fascinating! I'm supposed to stop my interest because of what others say.

No idea what to talk about with family if not academics. Anyone relate? Have you found a friend etc. to talk academics with?

Thanks.

This is the only place I know of where I can talk about stuff I learn. It feels good to know I am not the only one.

I have a theory that we see a pattern early in life that learning is rewarded (i.e.: grades) and that we think it is therefore important in every aspect of life and that more equals better.

I know what you mean about going ahead; can you tutor soemone? that's what they had me do at times.

Another theory is that learning is a pattern in another sense - school provides a way in which we can fall into a pattern and be able to exist in that pattern, and we're lost without that pattern. So, we stick with it in an odd sort of rigidity, even if we're not going along the same path as the others. (i.e.: going to fast.) To stop at a certain point, to us, is to be out of that pattern of going forward.

I know what you mean. Whenever I try to have a discussion with my family about my interest in psychology, I end up doing all the talking, and if I ask any conversation-inducing questions, all they ever say is, "Oh I don't know," and it's so boring. My mother is proud of my academic ability, and tells all her friends how smart I am, but never tries to engage me when I want to have a real discussion. I have the same problem with regard to my interest in dinosaurs. I can go off on lectures about species, time periods, interesting anatomical features that last for ages, and whenever I remember to check in and ask, "Am I boring you?" my mother says, "Oh it's okay, I'm not listening anyway." How would she like it if I said that to her? Why do NTs so often think that just because our interests are symptoms of our condition that they aren't important and don't need to be paid attention to? I'll bet if we were normal and had these interests, people would be more willing to listen. I wonder if I can put together a social experiment that tests that theory; get a bunch of people, half NT half aspie, and have them lecture others on their topic of interest, having some of the listeners be aware of what AS is, and see if they pay more attention to the NTs than the aspies.

becuase we would like to explore our ideas