How to keep an interest going? If possible?

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Basically I had forgotten how good it felt to have a real full blown interest in something. I have felt amazing for the past two days and, well I really don't want to loose it. My imterest however is one I've already had, back in p4 and I'm not sure it will stay? Does anybody have any tricks on how they feel they keep the fire burning? I woud really really appreciate any suggestions!

Best way that works for keeping it going is to not get too deep into it all at once to the point of burnout, and have multiple interests at the same time.

This strategy has worked for me.


It's kind of nice to be involved in things in which I know only the tip of the iceberg yet as things move along, I still get what I need.


But what also becomes obvious is that a special interest is self-defeating. The brain cannot absorb so much to fast anyway, and all I find in a special interest, applied as described in the usual case, is a reiteration of a growing loop of information. This will burn out just about any brain and kill the interest as the mind rebels.

Another thing that helps is to steer towards interest for which there can be no end of information that such burnout becomes impossible (no "end game") .

This is why if you take in interest in say, 17th century French Drama (dumb example, but it's in the past, has an end point, historical) it's bound to come to an end because the reason has no beginning and the end is not perpetuating further growth.

But if you take an interesting in something new, cutting edge tech where there are new developments, and the best: being involved in new development, then it could possibly never end or take a very long time.

I get kind of sad when I see people write things like "my interest was playing cards" now they have truckloads of playing cards and their money is gone, or something like that. I'd sooner slam my head in a door before I allowed that to happen.

In summary, the interests that never end are the ones that reward you and provide actual mental and emotional growth in some manner.

I'm not sure how to do this, because me interests are always on one person from one book/film there is very much a limit to how much I can learn so I run out pretty fast. The last interest I had I feel like it kept going just because I was writing a story about her and I feel like my interest finally finnished after I'd written the story. I don't know if this will work, but like I explained in my other post I have an idea for a Halloween party and I want to keep it till then. Thinking because I've set this goal I will probably manage that since it is only a few weeks where as I I were to write a future for this girl maybe it wouldn't be finnished because I'd give up after three weeks. I don't know!

Hmmm - well going full bore on a short term project is no big deal. If you go from project to project, and they differ, you get variety in life.

You describe that you hit a level of completion but that strikes me as a good thing. Sometimes you can reach a point, even if it seems like it's impossible, where you can say "my work is done here".

But am I to get the impression then, that you are enjoying the feeling of the special interest and want to prolong the feeling, but cannot rely on the interest itself to be reliable for these needs?

Kind of yes. My last interest lasted almost three years and I found it really difficult to leave behind. Since then I've had three short term interests, maybe even others that were so short I didn't even realise it. Half of me thinks that the fear of losing it is actually what is making me stop but I desperatly want to keep this going since I'd forgotten how much I loved the character.
I don't know if you believe in fate and such, generally I don't but I often feel I get some sort of sign that an interest is going to stay because it is included before. The last time this happened, years ago I had not long written a story and the main character was called Alice, a good time after that my interest was based around an Alice. This time, back when it came out I had a short lived love of the hunger games and then I played the part of a different Susan in a school play just before this happened. I'm beginning to panic everytime that she's not in my head. I think I might be paranoid about it which is making the situation worse!