What’s a thing you were completely obsessed with as a kid?
Hey, I’ll answer. Since it turns out that I have an autistic spectrum disorder, yes I developed obsessions, especially as a kid.
I grew up in 1980s, with it’s several classic science fiction movies that are now a part of pop culture, I developed an obsession with robots and future tech. It got to the point where I wanted to work in the robotics field, most likely as a technician.
The bad news is that I never worked in that field, although I do have an IT related degree. The good news is I have a robotics hobby, and I sometimes come up with interesting designs.
I became obsessed with Leonardo Da Vinci as a kid. I know quite a bit about his life, art, and his dabbling in architecture and engineering. That’s something I mostly kept to myself over the years, but I was able to visit the Leonardo Da Vinci Science and Technology Museum in Milan recently.
I liked some of the 80s music, and even some of the current music I listen to has that 80s influence, or samples music from the 1980s. Michael Jackson, Prince, The Gap Band, Alexander O’Neal, and so on.
I had a healthy obsession (maybe unhealthy, since it affected my grades) with video games in the 1980s, I had video game consoles over the years, and I would argue that playing video games helped me survive a rough childhood. I since cooled down from playing video games, at least until a Holodeck technology becomes real.
I had numerous Transformers toys (again robots), and I was obsessed with the supernatural and paranormal. Yes, I read about aliens and UFOs, ghosts, the cryptids like the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot. I later became a skeptic and atheist. Funny how that turned out.
On the bad side, I had an obsession with infectious diseases like Rabies and then HIV. I had a phase where I was washing my hands several times a day because of anxiety of getting sick. I outgrown that phase though.
I’m happy to say that I don’t have either disease, as far as I know. I suppose I got more educated about viruses because I was afraid of getting sick with such diseases. I never got COVID, and in fact helped in a small way in the creation of the mRNA vaccines.
So obsessions can be a good thing, if channeled properly.
HETTY 