Enthusiasm

Sometimes I drive people around me nuts with my enthusiasm.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a rah-rah, jumping up and down kind of person. I am, however, someone who gets interested in things easily (some may say I'm easily distracted). I find the world around me infinitely fascinating. I'm curious. I Google things; I go to the library; I pick up obscure magazines at the bookstore; I even read old encyclopedias. When I learn something new, I have a compulsion to share it with others.

I like to delve into things. And when I'm doing the delving, I'm sure to unearth something else even more interesting. That would be the end of it for most people - just the thought, 'hmmm, very interesting' then moving on. Not me. I MUST find out more. If I'm being very efficient, I'll make a note and come back to it later. If not, I'll get sidetracked looking up all kinds of minutiae and following every trail where it leads me.

Wikipedia is my worst enemy. Now, I love Wikipedia. But for someone like me, it can be the biggest time-gobbling, procrastinator-enabling, blackhole of lost time ever loosed upon unsuspecting internet users.

You know what the problem is? It has too many active links. It's way too easy for me to click on an interesting word or topic, go onto another page, find another interesting word, click on that one, find myself on another page with more interesting links, and . . . , well you get the idea. Pretty soon, it's an hour later and I'm at least half a dozen pages away from what I was looking up in the first place.

You may recall, a few blogs back, that when I looked up "memes", I wandered, but managed to find myself back on track. Today, I looked up "enthusiasm".

Here's where I went:
Enthusiasm - Greek meaning inspiration or possession. Enthusiast which led to possessed and divine possession; to Apollo; to Trojan War; to The Odyssey; to Odysseus; to Penelope where I stopped and read the entire article because I'm reading the Penelopiad. (But I've made a note to go back and read the article on The Odyssey more thoroughly.) None of which, except for the Greek derivation, has anything to do with enthusiasm.

You see my problem? Even as I write this, I go off in different directions.

Now where was I? Right! I'm an enthusiastic person. I can't help myself. I get interested in things, then, not only do I have to pursue the interests, I have a need to share my interest with those around me. My poor family is accustomed to me running up to them with arcane bits of information and declaring breathlessly, "Did you know that ... blah, blah, blah . . . did . . . blah, blah, blah!?" Their response being a barely concealed roll of eyes and a condescending, "Okay, mom". I'm pretty sure they only remember it as "blah, blah, blah" because if the topic ever comes up again, they never remember the details.

But I don't mind. My enthusiasm and curiosity has its uses. Guess who gets picked first for teams in Trivial Pursuit?