How did you discover your special interest?

Post Reply New Topic

I suppose, I should add something to my prior post here.

Before computers it was all about Lego... to the point where sometimes I wouldn't need to use the instructions past a general glance through.

I was also one of those kinda kids who from the age of 6 would do perfect copy pencil drawings of pictures, photo's and buildings etc... But I was otherwise generally crappy at Art, much to my art teachers frustration.

When I was a kid, I just became obsessed by piano (age 3-4 according to my dad), reading (I remember learning to read at age of 4) and math (age 5 or so. My dad was studying and my sister went to school and I found that math is interesting, fun and easy). And till the day I was 20, I spent all my days reading, learning to play piano by myself (at this stage I started to have problems with playing, and got really frustrated for not learning anything new) and doing math.

Then at 20, I found my self a boyfriend who had obsession about sports. I found that quite interesting, because I hadn't done any sport like ever. Well, I went to gym and suddenly forgot all my previous special interests! Maybe that was partly because I didn't feel like I was learning anything about piano by myself, and felt like I had read all the good books from library. I studied human physics, I trained, I ate with disclipine. I ever went to benchpress contest My coach was a math professor and he thought me cool things about physics, strengt etc. This took about 7 years of my life. Sure I had some minor interest on the way, like my real studies etc.

Recently I have managed to get back to my old interests. I'm even taking piano lessons and fell in love with playing again. I can even listen to music now, I hadn't done it for as many years I hadn't played. And I also read! And I found new interest, knitting! My friend introduced me to that.

They come and go, some of them remain, some not. Loving them.

Oh, my piano, waiting for me at home

I tried out chess club a few years ago! Since then chess has been my greatest hobby and interest. =)

I agree about it being like that MLP episode. =P

Roller Coasters
When I was six years old, I rode my first roller coaster at the old Coney Island amusement park in Cinicinnati, Ohio. It was a junior sized roller coaster called the Teddy Bear. I was still too afraid to ride the big roller coasters, but the spark for this special intense interest had been lit. I cannot really explain how it happened, but I began obsessing over roller coaster layouts and amusement park layouts. I began configuring the backyard into make-believe amusement parks. I would daydream about amusement parks and roller coasters. Upon entering elementary school I would draw plans of parks on my homework papers.

House Plans
I can trace this becoming an obsession around the time I entered high school. I went to a bookstore and saw a house plan book. I picked it up and thought how interesting they looked. I bought it, and within a year I had a bunch of house plan books. I began drawing detailed house plans of my own. But even before this I had often made sketches of houses throughout the years.

Other interests are often sparked the same way. I just happen across something about them and become intrigued.

My video game interest developed during a young age. I do have a number of lifelong game character obcessions to this day I use for objects of interest. Through my teens, I got encreasingly curious on how they worked, hardware, software, the programming, interfaces and design. This moved onto actual system based software I have a high interest for that I may even work as.

I did have dreams of becoming a garage mechanic as that was very technical, but I quickly lost interest in it.

Really interesting thread, IdahoRose! I wish there were more special interest discussions on here. I'll just talk about my three biggest SIs' beginnings. Just to note, I'm a big believer that SIs pick US, not that we pick THEM. So, I don't know if it's really possible for you to pick an SI yourself. I do hope you get a new one soon, but I have a feeling you will have to let one come to you.

1. I Love Lucy The summer I turned 12, I was watching TV late one night with my grandmother. We were flipping through the channels, trying to find something to watch. When we got to Nick-at-Nite, an episode of I Love Lucy was on, and my grandmother said we should watch that. I had never really seen Lucy before, but from what I knew about it, I wasn't a fan. But I was bored and agreed to watch it, since my grandmother said it was a funny show. I have no idea what episode it was, due to my limited knowledge of the show at the time, but I want to say that it was an episode from the first three seasons. I vaguely remember they were in the New York apartment, and Fred's one-liners were what made me laugh the most. (That is still true.)

I don't remember why I got attached to the show. I don't remember how it grew into a special interest, either. It's very fuzzy. I just know that, for my 13th birthday, I asked for the "Job Switching" Mattel doll, which I got from my grandmother. She also gave me my first Lucy book; these were the first two items in my Lucy collection. I was an expert well before my 14th birthday, which is when I went to the Lucy-Desi Museum in Jamestown, NY for the 50th anniversary celebration. Saw the handful of episodes I had never seen before a little while after the 50th anniversary in October 2001. Proud to say that I saw all the episodes myself on TV, by meticulously checking to see when a missing episode would air. Didn't get the DVDs until late high school.

2. Neuropsychiatry- I've been into the health sciences since I was around 3. As with all my special interests, I don't know what started this, either. But I always loved learning about organs and the human body and anatomy. What got me into neuropsychiatry specifically was my own mental health issues. When I finally got evaluated for "anxiety" in tenth grade, my interest in neuropsych disorders was sparked. Doing research on my own for fun is what made me discover that I have OCD. I learned from an online screening test that I was reading just to learn more about what OCD was in the first place. Shortly thereafter, I became intrigued by bipolar disorder. Don't know exactly how that started, but it probably was just from reading general information about it online.

When I was 16-17, I became an expert on bipolar disorder, because it fascinated me so much. Plus, I wanted to make one of my cartoon characters bipolar, so I wanted to portray her as accurately as possible. I read book after book to learn what bipolar I mania really is like to write for my character. In addition, when I learned around age 16 that neuropsychiatric disorders are thought to have a biological cause in the brain, I was further hooked. The brain has always been one of my favorite organs, ever since I was a child, so to get to link my interest in mental health disorders with my long-time interest in anatomy/physiology was a dream come true.

3. Cedar Point and their roller coasters- My parents were roller coaster fans long before I was born, so when I was very young, back around 1989-1991, they often took trips to Cedar Point to ride the new coasters built during the start of their coaster fame. I remember they brought me back a Sister Bear plush from their old Berenstain Bear Country when I was about 3. I was too little to go at first, so this mysterious place intrigued me. I think I might have gotten to go at age 4, but my first memory was going for my 5th birthday. It was magic.

As far back as I can remember, I have loved safety and height requirements for amusement park rides, and I was enchanted by Cedar Point's old safety requirement signs. Each ride had a character that was related to the ride's name/theme. My favorite back then was the metal dragon for the Iron Dragon. We have a picture of young me standing in front of the sign and beaming. I really liked the corkscrew with a face they had for the Corkscrew. It looked friendly. Their height requirement system (still in place today) also was/is amazing. Each height has a different color. I love color-coding. The red stick (48") was what allowed you to ride most coasters and other rides. Still true today. Other height requirement signs instilled fear in me, in a good way. Back then, coasters were much more hyped, mostly because fewer people were brave enough to ride them. The Magnum just evoked awe and terror in me back then, much more so after I was dragged on it at age 6. Every time we'd walk by it, the Darth Vader-esque height requirement sign would scare the living daylights out of me. Looking up at its hypercoaster skyline towering above scared me even more. I remember thinking how hardcore it was. This is one reason it has been my favorite coaster since age 12. And it will ALWAYS be my favorite. I have a history with it. Going to CP in about a month. When I see/hear the Magnum, I will be euphoric, as always.

And, of course, my special interest in coasters has an obvious connection with the fact that all amusement park rides are living, breathing examples of science and physics. I have always been entranced at watching coasters climb the lift hill and twist and loop through the track, but when I learned that there was a scientific reason behind how coasters operated, I was even further hooked.

i dont really remember, i have loved animals for as long as i can remember.

My life long obsession with electricity/electronics started at around age 6. I don't remember a lot about my childhood but this memory stands out clearly: I was watching my father testing a car headlight in his workshop. He connected one terminal of the bulb to a car battery and touched the light against his metal bench. The light came on. I had a torch so I took the batteries and bulb out and tried to get the bulb to light just using one wire, as I had seen my father do. Of course nothing happened. I then looked at the 12V battery my father was using and realized he had the other terminal of the battery connected to the bench. When he touched the bulb against the bench it lit up. Once I realized electricity has to flow on a loop, I could make my bulb work. After that came electromagnets, motors and all sorts of other fun stuff.

At age 8 my parents gave me an electronics kit and my fate was sealed. At around the same time they gave me my beloved meccano set (which I still have today). Computers came later at about 13 or so. Not surprisingly my computers ended up resembling something that had only just survived an encounter with the Borg. Who else had a scanner back in the mid eighties, especially on a Dragon 32?

These days I have a whole garage full of computer controlled machinery and my main income is from software to control machines.

When I was in grade school my school went to Serpent Mound. I became really into that place and began reading about other ancient mound builder sites. I noticed the geometry of them to be incredible. I've been hooked ever since. When I was really young I got into tents after spending alot of time camping with my parents. Rather than stay in their camper, I'd stay in a tent. Now I'd like to go on a big camping hike somewhere.

Until I was 12, my main interest were books.

Then it was music.

About 3 years ago, I started getting into films. I have always felt and still feel that I don't know enough about films. I will never know things that are "in fashion" though, I'll have to get used to that.

How did I find my interest?

Well, books... I guess they immediately seemed appealing to me. My parents would read me books and my mother is a teacher, I guess this matters a lot.

Music... That's a tough question. I had no real interest in music in primary school. It still seems weird to me that many children have been interested in music from an early age on. It's even weirder when kids never really were into books until later in life. Books are so much more accessible than music... (to me, of course ^^)

Music just came along.

And, well, films... mainly because it always bothered me that many people from my age group are so much into films. Be it for social or personal reasons.

I don't really like concerts, ironically, because I don't feel comfortable standing there. I rather listen to music at home.