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.

I am between fixation right now, which really sucks since I need things to keep my brain occupied. I'm taking a tolerance break from thc, I am looking for a new job, and I need something that keeps my mind off snacking.

A bunch of anxiety related things all twisting together, and something to focus on keeps my mind off the anxiety.

I'm doing drums, Amongus, Ben 10, video game modding, and Fallen London. And today I also played Beam Saber with My friends and started Death Stranding.

MAXIMUM EFFORT!

Have you watched Scavengers Reign and played Subnautica?

Depression.

I’ve even lost all my zest for hyperfocus lately. I’m dosing a daily routine of puzzles, music, and stressing.

Just maintaining until it comes back? That was me for the last maybe 2+ years. I'm worried about what will happen once this latest hyperfocus leaves me. Its been so great to be swept up in something.

Condolences. u_u Yeah keeping yourself from spiraling can be a full-time thing for sure. Fixation can be nice because it makes it easy to distract yourself, but on the flip side, you're also not "working on yourself" while you're in a state of hyperfocus.

AuDHD here. I cycle through mine, mostly. Just finished a few weeks of playing every Pokémon game I own and catching up on the anime, and now it looks like I'm back on Tamagotchis/virtual pets for the time being. 😬

The awkward between-fixations stage is so boring ughhhhh

Playing through Cyberpunk again. Not much else to do while unemployed.

Adult visual novels, unfortunately. There’s so many of them and they’re so fun to read!!

Collecting and archiving physical media.

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)

No sure. It’s not often it leaves me. I’m trying to learn to go with it and embrace the time and peace. It won’t last. That’s why I am choosing a routine, else I’ll turn destructive in my head. If anything I’m questioning why If it’s a mid life crisis…why can’t I focus when usually I have the problem the other way.

It’s a strange phase/feeling. It’s like nothing is satisfying. Usually I can grasp something even if it’s something that keeps me engaged/obsessed a few weeks. It could be an energy thing. I’m not sure. I probs sound crazy at the moment

I'm pretty hot on cleaning my firearm when I get home.

did you finish all of them or just play them

My PhD being insanely difficult for me has made me go through a couple fixations or hobbies with a few sticking.

Bourbon has been present the whole time. It went to a big problem to a passion from COVID to now. I am better. After that I got really into China after watching a video about having nice things for your daily life.

Then I got super into rebuilding iPods.

After getting introduced to torrenting and Jellyfin I became obsessed with selfhosting, running servers, and Linux. I had six or so servers in my past home and now two in my new country. Since everything works that has somewhat become less interesting to me.

Upon arriving in Japan my love for Game Boy's has exploded and I find myself exploring old games. T

he past few months spurred on by an invitation to make a workout music playlist I've gone from not running for over a decade to running 32k. Love this obsession with challenging my body as the result is losing over 10kg! :)

Some smaller fixations are blogging on my servers. Taking hand written notes and planners. Recording important moments. Managing household money.

Crusader Kings 2 right now

Adding monitoring to my self-hosted services:

• a bunch of different Prometheus exporters report data
• Prometheus collects data, remembers it, and fires alerts
• Grafana draws charts of the same data
• AlertManager decides when to alert, and deduplicates alerts
• ntfy sends push notifications to my phone

Yum!

Nah that's a real struggle and I wish you good speed. Understandable that it doesn't really leave room for more frivolous fixations.

It sucks that it's up to you to get out of that situation.

I'm not a gun guy but I do love this kind of finicky machine taking apart and cleaning. Like sometimes I'll take apart my vacuum cleaner detail it and put it back together.

It's really quite centering.

That's a pretty short game, isn't it? At least I got to credits pretty fast.

I'm not doing a full cleaning, just a field strip. I do want to get an ultrasonic cleaner to dip the trigger group into, though.

But yeah, I've been taking things apart and putting them back together for a long as I can remember. I had a little slot car track when I was seven or so, and I'd take the electric motors from the cars apart and clean them, taking lap times before and after to see how much faster a clean motor would go.

Not crazy. I think you're getting at something. Like getting into a more "Zen" (to use the western connotation of the word) like routine is indeed nice and peaceful. I do think all my different obsessions are to keep me occupied from doing the hard work of actualizing, and like, worlding a better place.

So much easier to come home from work and just throw myself headlong into the Good Computer until my head is so full I can't think of what might be missing.

Sorry if I'm misinterpreting you. That's my own take on it anyway

You sound like a very patient person.

Haha like horny ones? That's cool.

Damn, that sucks. Does it come and go? Sorry if you don't wasn't to talk about it.

Hope the cloud can lift at least a little bit for you soon. :/

I was when I was seven. Then it was just pure curiosity. Puberty made me bitter and angry, and while I've since always gained some enjoyment from making things work, it's been mostly about necessity since then.

What's your take on All Tomorrows? That's what got me into specevo

Like for your mental health, or liked you just feel compelled to?

Friend, you're thriving

Oh I wouldn't call it compulsion by any stretch. Just something I enjoy. I did some motorized bicycles for a time, that was fun. Kind of like a 3d puzzle that does something. On the other hand, I'm not a fan of just "puzzles", cardboard pieces in a box. Not big on Lego really either. I really want my functional 3d puzzles to include explosions somewhere.

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".

Lucky for me I don't really get involved with the online stuff or completing Pokédexes; I just really like exploring the regions and playing through the main campaign. 😁 So it lends itself quite well to a marathon every now and then.

I do the same thing with the Ace Attorney games

yeah but it has been some time since I have really had a fixation. zooming through my head was answering having shelter and medical insurance.

Nah, there's a lot to it.

You're gonna love Scavengers Reign, it's full of xenobiology!

About how long did it take you per game tho? I’m playing the original three gens and it’s taking me forever! Sounds like you had a fun time

I've gotten into homelab on my setver and anime, but am also really enjoing reading political and science books.

American politics.

And no, it makes me want to kill myself so no I'd rather not be fixated on this right now.

Ah that sounds nice. Maybe "driven" would be a better word than "compelled."

Kind of related (in my mind anyway) but I love those videos of people restoring really antique devices like vices or hand crank motors. I find the sounds really satisfying. I'm curious how much of the appeal for you is sensory in addition to the functional aspect.

My pastimes' sounds are the tapping of keys and scratching and rustling sounds of paper. Not as satisfying but I'm really into words and symbols and leaving little marks everywhere.

I really want my functional 3d puzzles to include explosions somewhere.

This is too good

Fitness. And I can’t get bored this time cause I’m diabetic.

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.

Learning how to use a sling (think "david and goliath")

I have enjoyed the semi-ASMR automotive videos, with tool sounds. I grew up in my dad's shop, and I've always loved tool sounds.

You may also like Wristwatch Revivals on YT, those are very fiddly.

Yeah they’re like trashy romance novels + comic books + choose your own adventure

Ugh, I feel this.

I think they're usually roughly 20 hours each for me! Are you playing the OGs or remakes? 😁