Research Obsessions

[viscousmemories]

I do this a lot. I was hoping going to school would help me utilize this compulsion but I find that I'm rarely inspired to research the things I'm studying at the time.

[godfry n. glad]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

I do this a lot. I was hoping going to school would help me utilize this compulsion but I find that I'm rarely inspired to research the things I'm studying at the time.

Yeah, that's usually the pisser about the whole obsession thing. I rarely obsess about anything that will make me any filthy lucre, either.

[JoeP]

Guys. It's like I don't even know you any more. Six hours since the OP and no one has posted this?

show spoiler

[Clutch Munny]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

I do this a lot. I was hoping going to school would help me utilize this compulsion but I find that I'm rarely inspired to research the things I'm studying at the time.

The trick is to run it the other direction: find a way to tie in your obsessions with your studies. It can't always be done -- Natalie Portman nip slips are not going to transfer laterally to a whole lot of course topics -- but it can be done fairly often, and in a reasonably principled way. The connections between things are real; you just have to mentally rotate the galaxy of issues and sub-issues until you see the straight line you can draw from your obsession to your class topic.

[LadyShea]

It's a never ending spiral that more and more factoids get thrown into...like a black hole maybe, and I live at the event horizon line.

This morning it was whether migraines are associated with dyslexia, on accounta my nephew. You know what? His mother pays no attention to me and never seeks my advice or anything, so it's all for nothing, yet I still did it. WHY?

[viscousmemories]

Originally Posted by Clutch Munny

It can't always be done -- Natalie Portman nip slips are not going to transfer laterally to a whole lot of course topics -- but it can be done fairly often, and in a reasonably principled way.

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

[Ymir's blood]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

It's a never ending spiral that more and more factoids get thrown into...like a black hole maybe, and I live at the event horizon line.

This morning it was whether migraines are associated with dyslexia, on accounta my nephew. You know what? His mother pays no attention to me and never seeks my advice or anything, so it's all for nothing, yet I still did it. WHY?

Because you care?

[LadyShea]

I know, but my caring and knowledge gathering leads to fuck all in the practical sense.

[Ymir's blood]

Caring makes you a better person, which is highly practical IMO.

[Plant Woman]

I turned my obsession with researching garden factoids into writing about them, which in turn earns me some extra money, and it's a whole lot of fun. So that rabbit hole isn't black, it's green.

[Shelli]

Originally Posted by livius drusus

Do you ever find yourself randomly stumbling on a subject and becoming completely engrossed by it to the point where you spend hour after hour obsessively tracking down every little piece of info you can?

Yes, constantly, and then I inundate Watser? to whatever the subject happens to be. Poow mokey.

[Watser?]

And it's usually psychokillers

[Shelli]

.. or addictive drugs, or diseases, or other health related topics, or one time, a country I stumbled upon online and decided to learn everything about it, or...

[Ymir's blood]

Originally Posted by Watser?

And it's usually psychokillers

David Byrne?

[livius drusus]

Fa fa-fa fa fa, fa fa fa-fa fa.

[Brimshack]

My most recent episode of random research pertains to a musical instrument that you play without touching. It eventually led me through the cold war and race relations among other things.

[lisarea]

Ha ha. I know what you are referring to AND mostly how that line of reasoning came about. And now, I am going to go figure out the missing piece.

[ChuckF]

lisarea could build one of those out of her old CRT if she weren't such a pussy.

[Pinecone]

Water colors - I'm currently obsessing about painting with watercolors. I don't think anything I've been obsessed about, (and there have been a lot of them) I've ever been interested in the history of the subject although mentions of random history I may have run into might have been interesting at the time. I also have never been interested in any particular person. I can't remember ever having read a biography.

Some obsessions have brought in a little cash but most of them make the time spent I've spent on the planet richer but my pockets poorer.

[Contrapposto]

This is hillarious! I am currently researching fibonacci sequences as found in nature for a leson about pattern as an art principle and I come across Pinecone discussing painting with watercolours (one of my specialties - see pic below).

[livius drusus]

That's a watercolor?! It's the most beautifully saturated watercolor I've ever seen.

Re Fibonacci sequences in art, you might enjoy this thread.

[Contrapposto]

Fibonacci Sequence For A Pinecone

[Contrapposto]

LIV

I
think
that was
so damn cool.
It totally rocked!
It is more fun than a haiku!
The watercolor is a gouache - a more opaque form!

[livius drusus]

Ohh, like the previously unknown Chagall the London Jewish Museum of Art bought last month.

[Pinecone]

Fingers go into cramps trying not to obsessively grill the new guy about what a newby watercolor person should definitely consider while setting up the art studio to do water colors.










GAhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! WINSOR NEWTONS or DANIEL SMITHS!!!???
What about Aquaboard and is it cool to paint on??
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh..........