Anna M. (IEE) about variety of interests

I understand that I’m interested in many things, but all of them rather superficially. I reach a certain level of understanding, figure things out — and then it’s on to the next thing, and the next…

In my childhood I did sports — table tennis — they wanted to make a champion out of me. I was seven years old, training six days a week. On Sundays I had two training sessions, three hours each. And after a while I just became completely worn out.

Then there was badminton, swimming, checkers, guitar playing, bead weaving, literature, theater, psychology, journalism, filmmaking…

I’m always involved in different things at the same time. Interest is born when a person becomes interesting to you.

Take bead weaving, for example: of course I wasn’t drawn in by the needles and beads themselves. First I saw the people. They were incredibly interesting — nonconformists, they wore friendship bracelets. I thought that if I joined them, if I went there to weave beads, I’d be around people like that, and it would be interesting for me. It would create a certain image. I came, learned how to weave, realized that the people were actually ordinary, figured it all out — and went on to the next place.

All hobbies at first are surrounded by some sort of aura of inaccessible, distant mystery. Then that aura of the unknown disappears, everyday communication sets in, and I lose interest. The interest gets exhausted in people, and it no longer burns as brightly as it does at the beginning.