What else do you like?

[Philoctetes]

(Inspired by DavidW's post in The Chat Threat)

But what are some of your other serious interests? By this I mean one in which you've spent a significant time investment into learning more about it, maybe even possession some sort of expertise in the matter.

I'll answer mine in a bit.

I'm really interested to know where people's passions lie.

[Mirror Image]

Besides music, I have always been passionate about water whether it be an ocean, river, a stream, a waterfall, etc. I'm also passionate about learning about different cultures and their traditions, geography, television sitcoms, film, and art.

[Philoctetes]

Besides music, I have always been passionate about water whether it be an ocean, river, a stream, a waterfall, etc. I'm also passionate about learning about different cultures and their traditions, geography, television sitcoms, film, and art.

Water in what way? Simply learning about it in general, or something specific like water rights, water security, etc.?

What other cultures?

[Mirror Image]

Water in what way? Simply learning about it in general, or something specific like water rights, water security, etc.?

What other cultures?

It's kind of hard to explain, but I'm fascinated by it -- the physical part of it. I'm interested in Native American and European culture (French, Czech, Hungarian, Switzerland, Italy, Portugal, Finland mainly).

[Philoctetes]

It's kind of hard to explain, but I'm fascinated by it -- the physical part of it. I'm interested in Native American and European culture (French, Czech, Hungarian, Switzerland, Italy, Portugal, Finland mainly).

So when you say water, you mean the actual water, not some abstraction about water. That's pretty cool, actually. Very gaea-like.

What about those particular cultures drew your eye?

[Mirror Image]

So when you say water, you mean the actual water, not some abstraction about water. That's pretty cool, actually. Very gaea-like.

What about those particular cultures drew your eye?

Yes, besides the water itself I'm fascinated by how it moves in rivers, oceans, waterfalls, etc. Again, the whole physical part of it.

I was drawn to Native American culture when finding out that my great grandmother was full-blooded Cherokee. The European culture has always been interesting for me because there's so much history there and people just treat each other much different in these countries than we do here or at least from what I understand they do. They value the simple things in life and this always appealed to me and I've tried to uphold this in my own life in some way or another.

[Philoctetes]

Yes, besides the water itself I'm fascinated by how it moves in rivers, oceans, waterfalls, etc. Again, the whole physical part of it.

I was drawn to Native American culture when finding out that my great grandmother was full-blooded Cherokee. The European culture has always been interesting for me because there's so much history there and people just treat each other much different in these countries than we do here or at least from what I understand they do. They value the simple things in life and this always appealed to me and I've tried to uphold this in my own life in some way or another.

I admire that sort of interest in water. I share a similar fascination with it as well.

Thanks for fleshing it out.

[Gurn Blanston]

You probably didn't notice this, being that we are in a music forum, but I have an abiding interest in history. No matter what other aspect first drew my attention to something, it is only a matter of time before I have at least a basic grip of its history. Thus, reading is my necessary corollary to everything else.

Golf. It is one of the few physical activities that has aged along with me. And I am passionately fond of it, despite that I never had the physical talent to excel at it (it requires just gobs of hand/eye coordination).

Long distance target shooting. Although I'm useless at ranges beyond 400 meters because my eyesight isn't up to snuff any longer.

Things that fascinate me;

Trains
Weather
Geology
Paleontology
Taxonomy
Fish. Aquarium fish, that is.
Dogs

Probably other stuff if I think about it.




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Now playing:

Divertimento Salzburg \ Haselböck - Hob 18_07 Concerto in F for Organ 2nd mvmt - Adagio

[Philoctetes]

You probably didn't notice this, being that we are in a music forum, but I have an abiding interest in history. No matter what other aspect first drew my attention to something, it is only a matter of time before I have at least a basic grip of its history. Thus, reading is my necessary corollary to everything else.

Golf. It is one of the few physical activities that has aged along with me. And I am passionately fond of it, despite that I never had the physical talent to excel at it (it requires just gobs of hand/eye coordination).

Long distance target shooting. Although I'm useless at ranges beyond 400 meters because my eyesight isn't up to snuff any longer.

Things that fascinate me;

Trains
Weather
Geology
Paleontology
Taxonomy
Fish. Aquarium fish, that is.
Dogs

Probably other stuff if I think about it.

Well the history part I picked up in one of your posts talking about the classical era, and instead of suggesting music, you suggested books on rhetorical theory.

What about those listed things fascinates you? Like when you say trains do you mean actual trains or model trains?

[TheGSMoeller]

Baseball Stadiums, mainly at the major's level.
I love the atmosphere, I love the sounds, the food, the drinks, the crowd and most of all the game.

But have always had a fascination for sports arenas, but mainly baseball.

[Philoctetes]

I'm not going to be able to recall all of the things that interest me. This is probably true of many, but I'll simply post the most salient in my mind.

Intellectual Pursuits:
Media Studies: specifically fame and celebrities in the 21st century (integrating the history of fame with the advent of youtube)
Organizational Theory: specifically viewing them as organisms, looking at their inner workings, comparing the apparent with the actual.
International Politics: specifically Liberia, but I try to keep in touch with it all. I'm not really interested with the theory here but rather praxis.
Psychology: specifically the concept of identification. I'm also interested in grief and mourning.

Non-Intellectual Pursuits:
Skateboarding, Contemporary Art, Yoga, Hiking, Film.

[Gurn Blanston]

Well the history part I picked up in one of your posts talking about the classical era, and instead of suggesting music, you suggested books on rhetorical theory.

What about those listed things fascinates you? Like when you say trains do you mean actual trains or model trains?

Trains. Both actually. I'm old enough for two aspects there; when I was a kid, steam locomotives were still operating freely in my area of the world, and how can anything be more interesting?  The sound of a steam whistle in the middle of the night fires a person's imagination like nothing else. And the other thing, of course, is that one of my first 'adult toys' was an American Flyer, one of the great model trains ever. A microcosm of America, right on my ping-pong table.

Weather. How does it work? What are its extreme capabilities? Why is it prevailing a certain manner at this place at this time?  You know? Only predictable in retrospect. Sort of like my first wife....

Geology. Probably tied to my history fetish. Just a question of scale, isn't it?

Paleontology. My other early 'toy' was a box full of dinosaurs. Need I say more?

I was a professional aquarist for several years. Taxonomy and aquariums go together for people like me. I likely know more about fish than any other single subject. The beauty of watching them in a good simulation of their own environment is unmatched for me.

Dogs. Can't really explain that one. I have had a many, only have 4 now. I once had 7 Scottish Terriers simultaneously. They were my pride and joy. Wouldn't live without a dog, that's all there is to it.

Golf. It is simply the most addictive game ever devised. Also the most difficult. If your experience of it is watching a professional on TV one Sunday afternoon, then you haven't a clue of the challenges involved. It is almost the only thing I have ever undertaken in my life that I wasn't immediately successful at to some degree. The pure pleasure of hitting the occasional perfect shot is indescribable. I could go on to say that putting it in the hole is damn near erotic, but what would you all think of me? Someone would call a mod!

[Philoctetes]

The beauty of watching them in a good simulation of their own environment is unmatched for me.

Thanks for extrapolating. I found this statement to be the most interesting. I never really thought about fish in that manner. Thanks for that thought.



Edit: Another thing that I've been investigating is objectification, being caught in the gaze, and what it means to be the sexualized other.

[Brian]

Taking Philo's template:

Intellectual:
- History broadly, with focuses on tactics and campaigns of the American Civil War; Theodore Roosevelt; the Ottoman Empire.
- History of thought on morality in the late 1600s through the mid-1700s. I wrote my master's thesis on the influence of 1650s sermons about human nature on the likes of Leviathan and John Locke.
- Geography and maps. At age 11 I placed 4th in my state Geography Bee and I still, at work, waste time by zooming in on places I've never been via Google Maps, or plotting walking paths across countrysides I've never visited.
- Cultural shifts to secularism.
- The novel, 1950-present; the contemporary movement to craft great 'entertainments' (Chabon, et al); novelists of all times whose primary concern was 'how to live', e.g. Fyodor Dostoevsky, David Foster Wallace.

Non-intellectual:
- Baseball. I am a die-hard Washington Nationals fan and study the major and minor leagues; I'm slowly but steadily learning the stats and 'sabermetrics' of the game, too.
- Food. Food food food food food. Nearly anything from tapas to burgers.
- Craft beer, specifically porters, stouts, and Trappists.
- Hiking.
- Comedy film and TV (Mel Brooks, Monty Python, Arrested Development, et al)
- Murder mysteries. PD James, Chandler, Christie, Columbo, or more frivolously Psych; see also Dostoevsky, Chabon, and Wallace

[Todd]

History
Politics
Economics & Business
Photography
Whiskey

[Philoctetes]

- History of thought on morality in the late 1600s through the mid-1700s. I wrote my master's thesis on the influence of 1650s sermons about human nature on the likes of Leviathan and John Locke.

- The novel, 1950-present; the contemporary movement to craft great 'entertainments' (Chabon, et al); novelists of all times whose primary concern was 'how to live', e.g. Fyodor Dostoevsky, David Foster Wallace.

That sounds like a wicked neat thesis. What exactly were their influences, in short, if you could?

What do you meant by great 'entertainments?'

[Ataraxia]

Genre fiction & Eastern philosophy

[DavidW]

Origami: I've been folding paper since I was a child.  But it's no mildly entertaining hobby, it became more of an obsession.  I have hundreds of books and magazines from countries all over the world.  I've folded everything from the simple crane to complex insects and everything inbetween.  I've folded models, created them, participated in the community via the email list for years, I've been in a club, and I've taught others how to fold.

But I have gradually lost interest in origami, I hope to find a new hobby.  But for the years I was into it, I was REALLY INTO IT.

More minor obsessions: this will sound very boring but somehow I got wrapped into it.  TV calibration.  My first hd set was crap, and I wanted to find settings to make it look better.  It's not really possible on that tv, but the more I learned the more I became fascinated by the science and art of calibration.  I have a meter and paid software to adjust grayscale and color management system.  I actually enjoy doing it.  I used to use free software and I would use a spreadsheet to calculate errors (called dE's) to find the settings that minimized error, and I would spend several hours doing this every few months.

I also have a bad habit of collecting headphones and ereaders.  As any friends on facebook know, I obsess over the current news around amazon, bn, apple and the big 6 publishers.  It's not anger at any one side, more like exciting because I think this emerging transition to digital for books is going to shape itself alot around these opening salvos between these big companies.

I also enjoy horror, I watch and read alot in that genre.

[Philoctetes]

History
Politics
Economics & Business

Could you expand or do you just mean in general?

Genre fiction & Eastern philosophy

Expand, if you would.

[Ataraxia]

I also enjoy horror, I watch and read alot in that genre.

You don't say, old boy.