What it' s like, liking Everything

I have a lot if interests. Chess, games, writing, sports, exercise, nutrition, classical music, classic rock, painting and drawing, sculpture, science, programming, and a whole bunch more. Liking a ton stuff is fun because wherever you go, there's something to do. There is nary a dull moment in my life, because I have so much to look forward to, and so much that I respond to.

But there is a catch: Liking too much is horrible. 

So horrible that, yes indeed, it deserved a bold font. Liking too much has given me so much, in terms of pleasure form the world. I can go to a butterfly exhibit and feel happy to learn about all the different types of butterflies landing on my shoulder. Or I can go to a gym, and work out until I drop. I can go to a book store, and spend hours sifting through the newest releases, or the coolest board games.

But from so much, comes so little too.

My interests varied so much, that it took me years to realize what I had truly been passionate about, what truly inspired me, what allowed me to be the person I wanted to be. Much of what I had done, and what I had learned, and what I had seen, or felt, was very superficial. I had been a generalist, striving to become a specialist.

It wasn't until I really started learning to program, and manage databases, that I realized how much I had been missing when skimming the surfaces of those cool things I liked. Programming taught me that, while you can be decent if you know the basics, the real programmer goes in all the way past his neck. He needs the elementary substances that programming is all about, in order to be truly prolific at his art.

And so I began to really pick and choose what I wanted to explore, to examine. I began to sink past the surface element, and study, instead, the meat of my interests, and this has made such a difference in what I can, and can not do, or rather, what I choose, or choose not, to learn.

I think my writing, and gaming, had suffered for it too; probably more so my writing. Without having that single focus, or that single goal to guide me along my life-path, I had unknowingly spread my interests too wide to make any meaningful contribution to my writing, or gaming world. I had been trying to do too much, too quickly, and with only the most superficial of knowledge.

So now my plan is to slow down, and take an even pace, and to learn more; to plunge into the deep end. I plan to spend more time watching the clouds roll by, so that eventually, I can really write something good.