Okay, so in my last blog post, I talked about that former classmate of mine who is obsessed with going on cruises. I was going to start talking about this in that blog post, but realized it was better served for a posting all its own, but I am always kind of fascinated who dive headlong into their obsessions with no reservations whatsoever. It can be anything: cats, macrame, cruises, tattooing, fantasy sports, shipmaking, whatever. I can't help but marvel at people for whom their obsession is their life and they are devoted to it so wholeheartedly that they don't notice or just don't care that most everyone they know doesn't share that obsession.
This post isn't just an ode to my cruise-going classmate, it was also inspired greatly by this video, which I saw the other day. This man believes he has dedicated at least three thousand hours of his life to making a kinetic toothpick statue of the SF Bay Area. Seeing the video, I think he's undercutting that by way too much, but regardless... Watch the video, and listen to the guy talk. You can tell that is all he knows in life. If anyone asks him about his interests, hobbies, what he does for a living, what he did over the weekend, any of that, you know they're getting a diatribe about his toothpick statue.
I know that I can be guilty of this at times. I talk about music a lot. I talk about my bands a whole hell of a lot, but more than anything, I love to listen. Deep down, despite how it might seem for those of you who read this blog, I'm actually pretty quiet and introverted, and would greatly prefer to talk than to listen. I have a pretty varied group of interests, and there's nothing I enjoy more than learning about things I'm otherwise unfamiliar with. Now, having said that, I don't know that I'd want to sit around and learn all about the finer arts of toothpick sculpting, but there are plenty of things that might pique my interest that I know absolutely nothing about.
I guess my larger gripe is just with those people who are so obsessive about their interests that they automatically assume it is fascinating to the general public, and they feel they have been given license to prattle on whilst ignoring all the unspoken cues that people don't really give as much of a damn about it as they do.
I am also curious about the role that the internet plays in this dynamic. Obviously, you can find an online community of people that share an interest in just about anything: painting, poetry, John Hughes movies, beauty tips, artificial insemination of livestock, you name it. It's wonderful that these people can find kindred spirits and share their mutual obsessions, it really is. I love that people spanning the globe can pool their knowledge and energies to advancing anything, even if it is the preservation of pre-1930s haberdashery. Doesn't matter what, I think it's wonderful. However, the flip side of that coin is that, despite the way it may seem, people live their lives outside of the internet, if even for a precious few hours, and they enter the outside world armed with a whole new set of information that the average person they interact with doesn't care about. And since most of their online interactions are with people who share the obsession, and encourage their obsessive behaviors, in my mind they are less likely to realize that happens on the internet, not in the real world.
But maybe I'm just cynical, and if I stopped rambling on about my band or the underground pop punk movement on the eastern sea board, I'd realize that I'm just as bad as anyone else.
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