Have you ever been able to redirect your special interest?

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As you all know I've had a special interest in Judaism. I've been trying to redirect it. I think I have. My special interest changed to Israel. I used to care about everything that had to do with Jewishness.

When I found out someone was Jewish I would get kind of excited. Now I don't really care. Now I get excited about stuff from Israel. Now I'm upset I didn't go with my family. I wanted to go, but I had good reasons not to.

I'm not studying Hebrew as much as I thought I would. I'm terrible at learning new alphabets. I also don't listen to any Hebrew music, so it's hard to learn the vocabulary.

Before I redirected this interest I didn't give a damn about Israel.

only if i find something more interesting, or if something happens to make me lose interest. otherwise, nope, completely 100% obsessed with whatever it is at the time and nothing else

Tom Hiddleston was redirected to PelleK... does that count?

Sounds less like "redirection" and more like "shifting emphasis onto a closely related topic".

As for me - nope. The only "interests" of mine that were ever truly "redirected" or dropped where ones that I pretended to have interest in to make my parents happy when I was very young and they wanted me to "be like other kids". I think my dad's still sad I had no interest in baseball or being the first to call-out make/model/year of a car as it passed on the highway. He didn't see any value in my being able to convert currencies in my head.

*shrug*

In my head, "Redirect" would be going from, for example, interest in Israel to Astronomy.
From Judaism to Israel just seems like .. "tweaking" an interest. Or even in one sense "honing it", as Israel fits will within the entire realm of Jewish Studies, as a component.

Granted they ARE different, but .. all squares are rectangles.

You didn't get excited when I told you I was Jewish!

Seriously: how much progress have you made in learning Hebrew?

LOL....my username actually consists of a Dutch Catholic last name. Only my mother is Jewish.

My user name is based on something which occurred when I was 9 years old. We were starting a softball team, each of us kids had to make up a nickname. This kid who felt sorry for me (because I was bullied) suggested "Krafty Korty." This meant that he thought I was crafty, meaning clever. I use that name in tribute to that kid who protected me from bullies. I believe I changed the spelling to the present spelling when we wrote our nicknames on our t-shirts.

Once I obsess about something then that obsession starts fading away on its own, I can't bring myself back to how obsessed I was about it in the beginning, I start losing interest in it until I'm completely not interested in it, there are times when I end up disliking it.

Ohh,,,wrote a response and it got wiped away. Here i go again...

I have two special interests, X and Y. Y was present at age 3 onwards, X was present since I was a baby, which my mother used as a calming device. I later became proficient at both X and Y.

I have been called a genius in X by some experts who have met me and I am regularly called gifted in X. I am also called gifted in Y but that to me is a more common skill so I don't appreciate it quite as much in myself.

For years I tried to make a career of X, but it is commonly known to be luck of the draw whether one does this with regards to this particular interest. The make or break factor is often social skills, not competence or quality of work, so you can see where my problem is, because I can and do spend significant time honing my craft in X but cannot be bothered of going out kissing ass, also known as networking.

So some years back I reasoned that as my special interest Y is more marketable, I should make a career out of that. Then I could either hire help in the form of people kissing as on my behalf and helping me become successful at X, or alternatively I would have financial security and be able to engage in X without the pressure of ever being successful at it.

I threw myself into Y, made it my new primary special interest, and neglected X for a good few years. With hyperfocus, I achieved in a few years at Y what apparently takes most people 10 years. I am now on a successful career track with Y. Luckily am able to take it a bit more easy with Y now and spend time on X, my truest interest if you like, instead. But it wasn't plain sailing - 6 months ago I had what I now know to have been an autistic shutdown, whereby I simply could not engage with Y anymore. I have continued to do so using very moderate and occasional energy, which thankfully works at the moment because my years of hyperfocus in Y have given me such a huge leg up with regards to what is known as 'the competition'.

I am hoping to fully re-engage with X in 2015, because I cannot go on neglecting my true special interest. I am also considering perhaps entirely giving up Y if it harms in any way my engagement with X. X is what I have always lived for; I love Y too but not in the same way. X consumed the whole of me and refreshes the whole of me; Y is a bit more superficial than that. I would rather have X be my full time career and Y my occasional sidekick activity, but I need to see how 'the market responds'.

(Don't you just hate business talk!)

On the note, I have personally noticed my mental health depends on how much I am able to engage with my special interests -- especially X, but also Y. I do wonder whether others feel the same way? That a lot of the autistic depression is caused by the environment not being supportive enough of your special interest and you making it your full time occupation? I am not stupid enough to just blame the environment of course; I do understand the laws of economics are at play; and I am not entitled to any career whatsoever, no matter how competent I am in it, if I am not able to demonstrate that competence to a paying target market. Even when that demonstration means kissing ass.

Happy Christmas y'all!

Meow Meow Christmas to you too!

I once had an interest in rock climbing that turned into a love of carabiners. I'm still into them.