ADHDers might call this a “hyperfocus” or the kind of obsession which resembles a hobby. Some activity that you think about at work all day and have to tear yourself away from to do anything else. I know it sounds like addiction, and it can look like one, but it always passes. Creative people might call it a muse?
I’m just on the tail end of one (Doom mapping), but no longer to the point I’ll skip eating in order to do it. So will probably be moving on soon.
Does this sound familiar? What are your obsessions like for you? Do you get them? Have you ever had one?
At the moment, sorta two connected ones: I’ve gotten increasingly focused on speculative evolution over the past few months because of some well made examples of that genre/niche that I stumbled on, and more recently some ideas Ive had as a consequence have led me down a rabbit hole of researching comb jellies, which has me thinking about them a ton.
Have you watched Scavengers Reign and played Subnautica?
Not familiar with scavengers reign, have played a fair bit of subnautica (all of them to varying degrees, though I think I’m the only person I’m currently familiar with whose favorite is below zero)
You’re gonna love Scavengers Reign, it’s full of xenobiology!
What’s your take on All Tomorrows? That’s what got me into specevo
Im mostly familiar with that one through general pop culture osmosis as ive not yet read it, it’s maybe a bit dark sounding for my taste, and in general human-descended creatures are one of the tropes in that niche that I care less for (my favorite themes for something to explore, by contrast, have tended to be unusual plants, marine life and especially marine invertebrates in atypical niches for their clade, and unexpected things evolving to fill the role of whales). What’s gotten me into this specevo stuff lately was “Serina”.
Ah yeah you’ve got a good read on it, it’s quite grim, and entirely post-human centric.
I’m checking Serina out. Looks really cool.