adopt a seasonal obsession

i once spent an entire summer becoming unnecessarily interested in the olympics. not casually interested. i mean learning the names of athletes i had never heard of three days earlier, becoming emotionally invested in sports i did not understand, and developing very strong opinions as though i had been appointed to some kind of national review board. for two weeks, everything had a little more plot.

there was something to talk about at breakfast, something happening at 5:30pm, an underdog i was rooting for, a sport i had suddenly decided was fascinating despite previously being unable to explain a single rule. then the olympics ended and i went back to my normal life, which was exactly the same life i had before. but for those few weeks, the days had felt fuller somehow.

i keep thinking about this because adulthood is very good at convincing us that the things which will make life feel different are the important ones. and of some course those things matter, some of them matter enormously. but while we wait for them, there are all these smaller parts of being alive that we seem to dismiss because they don’t lead anywhere. the strange little interest or temporary fixation that becomes the month you decided to learn everything about mushrooms or the summer you became the sort of person who had opinions about tomatoes.

when we were children, this came naturally. we were always in some kind of era. one month it’s egyptians, the next friendship bracelets, a particular book series, then knowing absolutely everything about dolphins. nobody asked what the return on investment was, you liked something, so you went towards it. then somewhere along the way, interests started needing a reason. if we bake, perhaps we should get good at baking. if we write, maybe we should publish it. if we take photos, perhaps we should post them somewhere. if we become interested in something, there is often a tiny voice asking what we are going to do with it. which is slightly exhausting, when you think about it.

sometimes i would like to know everything about a completely useless subject and then move on. i want to become interested in old train stations, or making the perfect picnic sandwich one summer. or watch every film one director ever made in chronological order during winter. i want to spend september noticing trees, or become the kind person who is able to say something like, actually, that’s a dahlia, despite having only learned what a dahlia is approximately six weeks ago.

there is something about these small obsessions that gives time a shape. without them, the months can start to blur together into the routine of work, dinner, washing, weekend, monday again. childhood gave us eras. adulthood replaces them with keeping on top of things, which is possibly the least exciting phrase in the english language.

but give a season one small fixation and suddenly there are things to notice. you’re searching for the first blackberries on your evening walk, checking which film is showing at the tiny cinema, taking the long route because there is a house with incredibly jurassic hydrangeas, reading about something at eleven at night because you suddenly need to know. the world has not changed, but your day feels fuller than it did before.

perhaps that’s why we remember certain periods through the things we were obsessed with. the summer of that album on repeat, the year we watched every episode of something, the winter we started making soup every sunday, or the season we became weirdly devoted to a local café. the obsession becomes a little pin in time. so many of us are waiting for life to become more interesting when something big happens, but sometimes it becomes more interesting because we found one small thing we couldn’t stop talking about for three months.

this month, we’re adopting a seasonal obsession. one thing to become slightly, unnecessarily, joyfully interested in for the next few months. it could be a subject, a ritual, a place, a food, a sport, a creative rabbit hole, or something so specific nobody else understands why you care. the only real rule is that it does not need to become anything. you do not have to get good at it, make money from it, turn it into content, or keep doing it forever. there is no pressure with a seasonal fascination. you are simply allowed to care, and see what happens to a season when you give it one thing to orbit around.

the mission: choose one thing to care about slightly too much this season, then let it follow you into your reading, watching, wandering, conversations, weekends and little pockets of spare time.

side effects:

• the next few months start feeling like an era instead of a blur

• you notice things you would usually walk straight past

• you develop a small, oddly specific expertise in something; old cinemas, neighbourhood trees, tennis players, nobody appointed you, you just know now

• you remember what it feels like to be curious without needing to be useful

• you become slightly more interesting to yourself

✿ why an obsession works better than a hobby
sometimes a hobby can start to feel like another thing to be good at, but an obsession asks far less of you. it’s gloriously low stakes. you’re allowed to follow it badly, temporarily, and with absolutely no plan for where it’s going. you don’t need to monetise it, improve at it, document it beautifully, or become the leading local authority on growing heirloom tomatoes. the whole pleasure is that it goes nowhere. there are enough things in life that require a result, your winter soup phase is allowed to remain between you and the root vegetables.