While I love my hobby related obsessions, I somewhat hate how they come and go, if I'm not "supplied" with a decent stream of said subject. The big issue however resides in "decent stream". I lose interest in things if I'm not doing in 24/7 (including skipping sleep) quite fast. Especially if it's not really an "active" activity.
A few weeks ago I finally caught up with Breaking bad, a show which I hadn't seen before. Heard of it, never got to it. In 3 days or so I pretty much plowed through 4 seasons, and the 5th was on the trail. I pretty much, excuse my expression, watched the **** out of it. I read up on wiki's about it, checked websites and wanted to know everything. I even ended up in listening to podcasts with interviews. And that's how I end up with every show I like. But at some point, the show ends. There is no 20 hour daily episodes of something going on, but that's pretty much how I need to be "fed" with those media. For a Philip K. Dick reference; I'm quite sure Buster Friendly would be a good fit for me.
Movies, series, even music... I need to... I wouldn't even call it "eating" to use it as a metaphor... I'm literally gorging it. Screw tableware, I'm using a shovel (which also illustrates my bluntness perfectly)
But those are all activities that are quite passive. Research isn't really an activity as such, as painting something or writing music.
When we're talking active stuff, I need to keep with it, to both have an interest AND keep my skills to a certain level. I sometimes call it terrible memory, but I actually have issues remembering how to hold a pen when I don't do this daily. I noticed a similar thing with other activities. Painting and the entire "how paints work" and the entire color theory... I have to dig really deep, if I'm not into that phase right now. And I'm usually not into that phase when I did something else the day before. Heck; me and videogames... if I'm not playing said game all day, chances are the next day I have to "relearn" the controls and feel of the game again. Granted it goes faster, it's subconscious, but still, it takes some time for me to get into it. So doing stuff in short bursts doesn't work for me at all. And as such I learned that obsessions and stuff need to be there for a long while and not just in short bursts. On a related note; when I was in university, the first weekend was already detrimental for my progress... I wasn't able to indulge on those things 7 days a week, 24 hours a day (and depending on others in terms of teamwork is a fatal blow).
A big problem in that area however is resources. I don't have a cashflow that allows me to keep busy with all these things for this amount of time. And similarly, if I had this cashflow I didn't have time to develop any skills or interests probably.
It's not neccesarily that I have obsessions I think are weird or wrong. It's just that my way in dealing with obsessions... that's probably different.
