One of the best things to me about being human is the idea that any given person has their own collection of unexplainable interests. I'd bet at least most of us do. The ones that are as untouched as possible by outside social influence, or that you've had for almost as long as you can remember but have no memory or ability to trace specifically how they came to be interesting to you. Or the ones that defy easy analysis even to the person who possesses them. And especially the ones that are some combination of the lot. They seem sort of sacred, like genuine manifestations of whatever the deepest sense of you really is. It's worth getting all self-indulgent and investigating them once in a while.
It makes sense to me that the longer you've held an interest, the less tainted by judgment and self-consciousness it's discovery was. It's more pure in a way. Other than the influence of your own innate predispositions, all subjects are fair game when you're younger because you have no context or framework for comparing like things. Everything is new. Which is probably why there aren't a lot of connoisseurs in grade school. But with age comes self-awareness, and with self-awareness comes some amount of persona building. And trying to be cool, or at least trying to fit in somehow. So to me, the older the interest-assuming that it's still maintained to some degree-the more mysterious and maybe even fundamental it is.
Two big ones come to mind for me personally; horror movies and Italian food. Seemingly random, but specific. I would love to be able to say music here as well, but other than it being the longest and strongest-running, there is way too much outside influence and social baggage attached that disqualifies it. And it's not so original or interesting to think about anyways. Which leaves us with the big two.
It was sometime around third or fourth grade. I remember hanging out for hours on end at the Mr. Movies in Highland, St. Paul down the street from where I grew up, staring at the movie boxes in the horror aisle, and wondering what could possibly be on the VHS tapes inside. There were always one or two stills on the back to give you some idea, as well as the often totally misleading artwork. For instance, there was a great cover for the gnarly Peter Jackson movie Dead Alive, which I came to find out-after watching almost two decades later-should have been for a different movie altogether. I'm happy to say that regardless of the mismatch it did not disappoint. And that even while maintaining a love for the genre after watching many more of those movies over the years, I still basically have no idea why the interest took in the first place. Other than for the shock value, maybe. But it's hard to believe there isn't more than just novelty to its ongoing appeal. It's held on for too long and I've long been desensitized for it to be that simple of an explanation.
The Italian food hit me right in that same time period. It was a Cooks of Crocus Hill store that I was at with my stepmom when I stumbled across a hefty book titled The Italian Cooking Encyclopedia. I leafed through it for a while and was interested enough to convince her to buy it for me, possibly based on the fact that the first third or so of the book was a long index of Italian ingredients I had never heard of. For example, I remember learning what fennel was for the first time and being totally baffled that this vegetable sort of resembling celery tasted like licorice. My nine or ten year old mind was blown by a vegetable. And in all fairness, it's still pretty bizarre to consider. There was plenty more in there to obsess over as well, and I eventually worked up the nerve to attempt cooking a multi-course dinner out of the book for my family, which unsurprisingly didn't turn out so great. My ambition far exceeded my skill. But that initial, very specific interest did blossom into a broader one, and I went on to have a career cooking in some of the better restaurants in Minneapolis (none of which were Italian, ironically.) The point is that something stuck early on and I again have no idea why, other than for the fact that the subject was exotic or novel to me. And I still have that book.
This isn't just an elaborate way to try and rope you into my own self-indulgent exercise. It's to suggest that our subconscious may drive what interests us way more than we realize. And that you can find evidence of this in some of your oldest ongoing interests, acquired before having a fully developed persona, and before life and all of its baggage flooded in to influence where your attention gets directed. Before you were consciously trying or pretending to be into anything.
And this is where I can actually bring music into the conversation: maybe the best things in life are those that are the most difficult to analyze. I could probably go to therapy and get a very clinical, textbook explanation for what it is about my personality that allows music, horror movies, or food to move me. But that knowledge would totally detract from exactly what gives them their power, which is to elicit an emotional response that defies easy explanation. It's like never being able to experience a magic trick the same way after knowing how it's done, even though you knew all along that there was something you weren't seeing. I don't want to know what's behind the curtain if it's going to make me stop believing in magic.
Hmmm I guess my relationship with my interests is kind of the opposite. I find them pretty normal and explicable. I like hockey because my grandfather was a hockey coach who pushed me into it.
I like the classical world because I am a deeply curious person and the classical world is super fascinating to a curious 8-9 year old. Aristotle, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar are legit interesting people with interesting lives.
I like video games because video games are fun. I like strategy and simulation video games probably because I was smarter than the average best and so both could get more out of them, and was better at them compared to my peers in comparison to fast twitch games.
My musical tastes have evolved over time, but I agree that childhood anchors seems important hear.
As I have expressed elsewhere I have found my curiosity waning in certain respects. When I was younger I was ravenous for all knowledge, and in particular say physics. But then at some point I understood enough physics and understanding more became hard enough I was basically like “that’s enough for me”.