Time to launch a new special interest

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Barsine
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05 Aug 2011, 6:16 pm

I have the solution to my current funk. I need a new special interest, and I've picked it out. It's perfect, big and messy and difficult. I have a launching pad for researching it that I made myself. This will be my new great escape.

The problem with being an evil genius is that you develop feasible plans. Once you have a plan you have to become a tool in your own plan. Then it's all work and no fun. I need an inchoate ambition to chew on, I need to feel the stormy phase of discovery and exploration and invention. A drawing board to scribble on, a distraction from the tedium of progressing along already-made plans.

Is this how you hit upon a new special interest, or is it just me?



purchase
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05 Aug 2011, 6:23 pm

Yes. That applies to how I approach new projects. By the way I had to look up inchoate. That's the perfect word. That's what drives me, reaching toward things generally considered unfeasible, existing in the space where you have every choice but have chosen nothing yet because when you choose something you reject all the others.

You still didn't say what your new special interest is though!

So I'm a great project-starter but a horrible, or nonexistent, project-finisher. But my current project is basically composed of a bunch of starts tied together. So I AM GETTING THIS DONE!



Barsine
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05 Aug 2011, 6:35 pm

I've become obsessed with results, all my special interests get channeled into goal-oriented behavior eventually. But once that happens I lose momentum and excitement. My new one is oil exploration politics in the Peruvian amazon. Specific enough that I can develop usable expertise and influence via news/opinion writing, letter writing to policy makers, possibly other activism. Broad and complex enough to prevent me establishing a foothold or a predictable trajectory - I'll never begin to feel like an insider going through the motions, which is what happened with my special interest in public health. I should be able to stay frustrated, excluded, confused, and fascinated with the unknowable, unmasterable center.



MagicMeerkat
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05 Aug 2011, 7:40 pm

My special intrests kinda just pop up and decide to be special intrests. Sometimes they start showing up in dreams (that's how my current Sonic obsession started) and maybe something will come along and ignite that spark such as being hissed at by a pair of real hedgehogs. But anyway, I never chose what my special intrest would be, my special intrest always chose me. My main, number one special intrest will always be meerkats and veterinary medicine. I have no idea why I like meerkats so much or why I want to be a vet so much. I just do...


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MakaylaTheAspie
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05 Aug 2011, 7:51 pm

They just come to me. I don't choose them, but I do decide if I'm interested or not.


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Barsine
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05 Aug 2011, 8:09 pm

I was reluctant to choose this one but it used to give me terrible nightmares so I know it's for me.



Tayribeiro
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05 Aug 2011, 8:23 pm

When i find an special interest i don't give it up until i get to know everything about it, and frequently while researching an specific subject another one comes up and i just follow the motion.
Btw I've been to amazon, it is immense an, diverse and gorgeous to even consider oil exploration on such environment, that's why here in brazil we extract oil from the ocean's pre-salt layer, and we are auto-sufficient now!



Barsine
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05 Aug 2011, 8:34 pm

I am hopeful that Peru's new President will follow Brazil's lead, respecting indigenous rights and improving social welfare. But Peru has privatized its oil company so unlike Brazil cannot spend oil revenues to improve the welfare of the poor. Still I am sure the oil and gas industry will remain influential in forest management policy. Protecting the Amazon is so important but there are so many interest groups trying to open it up for land, oil, timber, gold or hydropower.