A Little Of Nothing

Category: Collections & Curiosities

  • I Like a Bit of Everything. Until I Don’t.

    I Like a Bit of Everything. Until I Don’t.

    On eclectic tastes, curiosity, ADHD, and the apparently endless search for something new.

    A Question of Taste

    I like to think I have eclectic tastes. It sounds rather sophisticated, doesn’t it? Eclectic. It suggests someone with a broad appreciation of music, literature, cinema, and the arts. Someone who has carefully explored different genres, considered their relative merits, and developed a rich and varied collection of cultural interests.

    The reality is probably closer to someone who keeps encountering things, thinking “Ooh, what’s that?”, and disappearing down another rabbit hole for the next three weeks.

    I’ve always been interested in lots of different things, often things that have very little in common with one another. My music collection is all over the place, my bookshelves contain an assortment of subjects that would probably confuse a librarian, and my film collection looks like it belongs to several people who have never met and would probably struggle to agree on what to watch together.

    I’ve generally described myself as eclectic, but recently I’ve started wondering whether that’s entirely accurate. Do I genuinely have unusually broad tastes, or am I simply endlessly curious about things I haven’t encountered before? And how much of that curiosity is driven by the ADHD part of my brain, constantly looking for something new to investigate?

    I’m not entirely sure. Which is probably why I’ve started investigating it.

    My Music Collection Needs Supervision

    Music is probably the easiest place to start because my tastes are, frankly, ridiculous.

    I can happily listen to progressive rock, Philip Glass, Eminem, or a classical symphony, and then follow them with some gloriously cheesy pop, a television theme tune, or a bit of 70s disco. I’ve even ventured into Mongolian throat singing and British drill rap, although those were more exploratory expeditions than permanent changes of musical allegiance. I do still listen to them occasionally, just not quite as often as some of my more established favourites.

    I’m not entirely sure what Spotify’s recommendation algorithm makes of all this, although I suspect it’s quietly having some sort of breakdown. Trying to predict what I’ll want to hear next must be rather like attempting to forecast the weather on Jupiter.

    There are some things I return to regularly. As mentioned above, progressive rock has been a favourite for years, as has classical music, and composers such as Philip Glass. Eminem gets a fairly regular outing too, and I have a considerable weakness for music that other people might dismiss as cheesy or unfashionable. I’ve never really understood why enjoying one kind of music should somehow prevent me from enjoying another. If I like something, I like it. I don’t particularly care whether it’s considered sophisticated, fashionable, obscure, or embarrassingly commercial.

    And when I discover something unfamiliar, I rarely leave it at simply listening to it. I want to know who created it, what else they’ve recorded, where the style came from, and whether there are other artists doing something similar. One piece of music can lead to an entire evening exploring a genre I’d barely heard of that morning. Whether I’ll still be listening to any of it six months later is another matter entirely.

    Some discoveries become permanent additions to my musical world. Others are brief but thoroughly enjoyable diversions. I don’t necessarily regret the ones that don’t stick. I enjoyed finding out about them, and I might well return to them occasionally.

    Although I suspect the person sitting next to me when my music collection is on shuffle might wish I’d exercised a little more restraint.

    The Bookshelves Aren’t Much Better

    My reading habits are a little more predictable, at least at first glance. Science fiction is probably my natural home, although I also enjoy fantasy, comedy, and books that are just plain weird. Douglas Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach is a good example of the latter, a book that manages to wander through mathematics, logic, art, music, and consciousness without appearing particularly concerned about which shelf it ought to live on. Not that my shelves follow any form of logical order that is! I have books on mathematics, next to books on architecture mixed with Terry Practchett and Adrian Tchaikovsky, Next shelf down, several dictionaries, a few graphic novels and some J.R.R. Tolkein!

    I also read an awful lot of technical non-fiction. Mathematics, physics, chemistry, anthropology, popular science, and whatever else happens to catch my attention. I’m not necessarily reading these things because I need the information for anything in particular. I just find the subjects interesting, and once I’ve discovered something I didn’t know, there’s a reasonable chance I’ll want to know rather more about it.

    I’m also not particularly consistent about finishing the books I start, particularly the technical or popular-science books. Sometimes I’ll read one from cover to cover, thoroughly enjoying the journey. Other times, I’ll get halfway through, encounter an idea that catches my attention, and wander off to investigate it. It might be something the author mentions in passing, or it might be something they’ve said that I don’t entirely agree with. Either way, I find myself reading about something else entirely, and the original book gets temporarily abandoned while I pursue this new line of thought.

    I’m never quite sure whether this counts as being easily distracted or simply getting rather more out of a book than the author intended. I suspect the answer depends on how charitable I’m feeling towards myself that day.

    There’s also the small matter of the books themselves. I have quite a lot of them, as anyone who has seen my office will confirm. And despite having shelves full of things I haven’t necessarily read ( or finished reading ) yet, I can still find myself browsing for something new. Apparently, having an extensive supply of interesting things available isn’t always sufficient to stop me looking for more.

    I Used to Live at the Cinema. Almost.

    My taste in films is probably the most extreme example of my eclecticism. I have an extensive collection of DVDs and Blu-rays covering everything from science fiction and horror to classic Hollywood, musicals, foreign-language cinema, documentaries, animation, and some frankly peculiar films that I struggle to classify. Science fiction is undoubtedly a favourite, but I’m quite happy watching almost anything if it catches my attention.

    My collection includes 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Seventh Seal, Mamma Mia!, and Ichi the Killer. I’m not entirely sure what that combination says about me, and I’m probably happier not knowing.

    I’ve always loved going to the cinema. Before I was married and acquired responsibilities (how very inconsiderate of life), I had a membership at my local cinema and would watch practically everything they released. And I really do mean literally everything. There were occasions when I’d arrive as the doors opened, spend the entire day moving from one screening to another, and finally leave when they were closing up for the night. Sometimes I’d watch the same film several times over the an entire weekend.

    I wasn’t particularly concerned about whether something was supposed to be good, critically acclaimed, or even remotely the sort of film I’d normally choose. It was a new film, I hadn’t seen it, and that was usually reason enough to give it a go. Of course, this meant sitting through some truly dreadful films, but I also discovered things I might never have chosen to watch otherwise.

    I still love collecting films, but watching them has always been the important part. The collection is partly a consequence of that enthusiasm, although I’ll admit there’s something rather satisfying about having all those films sitting on the shelves, waiting to be watched again.

    I’ve also developed interests in particular directors and styles of filmmaking. My collection includes films by Peter Greenaway, Jacques Tati, and Studio Ghibli, alongside mainstream blockbusters, classic comedies, and an assortment of films that are difficult to describe without making them sound considerably stranger than they already are.

    There are films I return to repeatedly, just as there are albums I never seem to tire of. But I’m equally happy trying something completely unfamiliar. I suppose spending an entire day in a cinema watching whatever happened to be showing was a fairly effective way of indulging both tendencies.

    Eclectic, Curious, or Just Easily Distracted?

    All of which brings me back to the original question. Am I genuinely eclectic, or is there something else going on?

    I’ve been thinking about the difference between enjoying a wide variety of things and actively seeking out new experiences. They’re obviously related, but I’m not convinced they’re quite the same.

    Someone with eclectic tastes might enjoy classical music, heavy metal, jazz, and folk because they genuinely appreciate all four. Someone driven by curiosity might encounter an unfamiliar musical style and want to investigate it simply because it’s unfamiliar. And someone seeking novelty might find the excitement of discovering something new more appealing than the thing they’ve discovered.

    I suspect I manage all three, sometimes simultaneously.

    There are interests that have stayed with me for decades. Science fiction, progressive rock, classical music, electronics, and films have all been part of my life for a very long time. Whatever else I’m doing, I seem to find my way back to them eventually.

    But there are also the temporary fascinations. Something catches my attention, I become thoroughly absorbed in it, investigate everything I can find, and then, sometimes quite abruptly, my attention moves elsewhere. Occasionally I return to the original interest months or years later. Sometimes I don’t.

    I don’t always know why.

    Is This the ADHD Talking?

    I do wonder how much of this is connected to ADHD. Novelty can be particularly appealing to people with ADHD, and interest can have a considerable influence on where attention goes. I certainly recognise the experience of becoming intensely fascinated by something new, only to discover that the fascination has faded once I’ve explored it for a while.

    There’s something faintly ridiculous about a brain that can announce a new lifelong passion on Tuesday and have apparently forgotten about it and moved on to something new by Friday.

    But I’m reluctant to attribute everything to ADHD. Curiosity isn’t exclusive to neurodivergent people, and neither is having broad tastes. People have been collecting things, exploring unfamiliar subjects, and changing their minds about what interests them for considerably longer than we’ve had diagnostic labels to describe some of those behaviours.

    I also don’t want to confuse losing interest with having my interest redirected. When I’m reading a book about physics and encounter an idea that sends me off investigating something in mathematics, I haven’t necessarily become bored with physics. I’ve simply found another question I want to answer. The original book might remain unfinished for months, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t enjoyed it or learned something from it.

    Of course, sometimes I really have just become bored and wandered off to do something else. It would be dishonest to pretend otherwise.

    And sometimes I suspect the excitement of discovering something new is itself part of the attraction. The initial investigation, finding out what I don’t know, discovering connections, and getting that rather satisfying feeling when something begins to make sense. Once I’ve satisfied my curiosity, I may feel quite content to move on.

    Whether that’s ADHD, personality, or simply a lifelong habit of poking my nose into things, I couldn’t say.

    The Thrill of the Chase

    I think there’s something worth exploring in the idea that I enjoy the process of discovery almost as much as the things I discover.

    When I encounter something unfamiliar, I tend to want to understand it. I don’t necessarily need to become an expert, and I certainly don’t need to turn every new interest into a permanent hobby. Sometimes I just want to find out what it is, how it works, where it came from, or why somebody thought it was a good idea in the first place.

    That curiosity can take me in some peculiar directions. A piece of music leads to an unfamiliar instrument, which leads to a different musical tradition. A book raises a question that sends me off reading about something only vaguely connected to the original subject. A film introduces me to a director whose work I hadn’t encountered before, and suddenly there are several more DVDs on the shelf.

    And, occasionally, the whole process ends with me knowing quite a lot about something that I will probably never need to know again.

    I seem to have accumulated a considerable quantity of such information over the years. Some of it has proved unexpectedly useful. Much of it hasn’t, although it occasionally comes in handy during quizzes or when I want to bore somebody at a dinner party. My wife refers to me as “The Human IMDb” because I’m forever telling her, “Oh, he was in this movie with X and Y, and it was directed by Z. But Z also directed A and B, which appeared in movie Q, which went on to spawn a series starring both X and Y again!” This sort of outburst is usually met with a “Shut up and watch the movie Pete!” from my wife !

    I suppose the danger is that I can spend so much time investigating the next interesting thing that I neglect something I was perfectly happy doing before. I’ve certainly done that often enough, and there are probably several unfinished books around the house that could testify on the subject if books were capable of giving evidence.

    Still, I don’t think every interest needs to last forever to have been worthwhile. Sometimes finding out about something is enough.

    The Things That Stick

    What I find particularly curious is that, despite all this wandering around, some things never seem to lose their appeal.

    I’ve listened to certain kinds of music for decades and still enjoy them. I can revisit a favourite film even when I know exactly what’s going to happen, and science fiction remains my default choice when I’m looking for something to read. There are books I’ve returned to, subjects I’ve studied repeatedly, and interests that have survived numerous excursions into completely unrelated territory.

    So the idea that I’m simply chasing novelty doesn’t quite explain everything. If it did, surely I’d have abandoned all those old favourites years ago.

    I don’t know what separates the lasting interests from the temporary ones. Perhaps some subjects are simply broad enough that there’s always something else to discover within them. Science fiction certainly offers an almost unlimited supply of new ideas, while music is hardly a field in which anyone is likely to run out of unfamiliar things to hear.

    Or perhaps I just really like progressive rock.

    That seems equally plausible.

    A Little Bit of Everything

    I’m still not entirely sure whether eclectic is the right word to describe my tastes. It certainly describes the contents of my music collection, bookshelves, and DVD library, but I’m less convinced it explains how they ended up that way.

    Some things I discovered because I was deliberately looking for something new. Others appeared by accident, or because somebody recommended them, or because I happened to encounter them while investigating something else entirely. Some have become lasting favourites, while others have been enjoyable diversions that I rarely revisit.

    I suspect my curiosity has a great deal to do with it, and ADHD may well contribute to the enthusiasm with which I occasionally throw myself into a new subject. But I don’t feel any particular need to pin the whole thing down to a single explanation.

    There are still enormous amounts of music I haven’t heard, books I haven’t read, films I haven’t watched, and subjects I know almost nothing about. Some of them I’ll probably love, some I’ll dislike, and others will leave me wondering why I bothered.

    I quite like the idea that I haven’t finished discovering what I enjoy.

    Although, looking at the number of books and films I already own, I probably ought to make a start on some of my unwatched and unread piles first.

  • I Miss Being Bored

    I Miss Being Bored

    Why having nothing to do might have been surprisingly good for us and why there are benefits of boredom.

    I Used to Be Bored

    I remember being bored. Properly bored. Not “there’s nothing interesting on Netflix” bored, while holding a device containing almost the entirety of human knowledge, entertainment, and argument in one hand. I mean nothing to do bored.

    Waiting for a bus. Sitting in the back of a car on a long journey. Standing in a queue. Waiting for someone who was late. Sitting in a doctor’s waiting room with a three-year-old copy of Country Life. Being on the toilet and discovering there was nothing within reach to read except the back of a shampoo bottle. There were these little gaps in the day when nothing happened and, because nothing happened, you had to find something to do with your own brain.

    I’m beginning to wonder whether we accidentally got rid of something useful.

    We Fixed Boredom

    We have become extraordinarily good at eliminating those gaps. There is almost no situation now in which I need to be alone with my thoughts. Bus late? Phone. Queue? Phone. Someone goes to the toilet in the pub? Phone. Lift taking eleven seconds to arrive? Apparently eleven seconds is now an intolerable amount of time to spend simply existing, so: phone.

    And I don’t say this from a position of superiority. I do it too. My phone is a remarkably effective anti-boredom machine and, as I’ve written before, the internet itself has become remarkably good at deciding what I should look at next. It contains books, music, podcasts, games, messages, photographs, news, and an effectively infinite quantity of people being wrong about things. The slightest hint of an unoccupied moment appears and I can kill it instantly.

    Which sounds like progress. Except I’m increasingly suspicious of what else we’re killing.

    The Strange Things Boredom Made Us Do

    Boredom used to make me do things, although not necessarily useful things. I would take things apart, read things I wouldn’t otherwise have read, stare at maps, look through cupboards, pick up books because they happened to be there, notice odd details about places, and follow trains of thought that didn’t have any obvious destination.

    I even remember being so bored once that I started reading the dictionary. Not looking something up, actually reading it. Probably explains my love of words!

    I’ve already established that I have something of a weakness for learning things I’ll probably never need, although apparently this started earlier than I realised.

    I personally remember a time when, as a bored 12-year-old, I decided to take apart some of my electrical and electronic devices to “see how they worked”. Erm, yeah. Very soon afterwards, “see how they worked” became “see why they no longer work!”

    And I’m not just talking about small things. I’m talking about taking apart an old and dilapidated CRT television. I mean, these things were dangerous, and I really didn’t know enough about electronics to know any better. But I did it anyway.

    My parents were furious, naturally, but afterwards I was enrolled in the school electronics club. At least now I could take things apart AND put them back together again afterwards.

    Would I have developed my interest in electronics if I hadn’t been bored that day? Quite possibly. But the boredom certainly accelerated things.

    Some of those things went nowhere. But some of my longest-running interests probably began precisely because nobody had yet invented an algorithm capable of noticing I was bored and immediately showing me a thirty-second video. Boredom wasn’t necessarily an absence of stimulation. Sometimes it was the point at which I had to start generating my own.

    The Asimov Story I Keep Thinking About

    There is an Isaac Asimov short story called Writing Time, part of his Azazel stories. Azazel is a tiny demon, about two centimetres tall, whom a character called George can summon and persuade to grant favours to people. Like most stories involving wishes, the favour tends to work perfectly while producing a result the recipient hadn’t quite anticipated.

    In Writing Time, the recipient is a writer called Mordecai Sims. Sims is infuriated by how much of his life he wastes waiting. Waiting for buses, waiting for taxis, waiting to be served, waiting for people. All that wasted time when he could be writing. So Azazel fixes it. Sims no longer has to wait. The bus arrives when he does, taxis appear, service is immediate, and all those annoying little delays disappear. He gets exactly what he wanted: more time to write.

    And then he can’t write.

    It turns out that all those periods when Sims thought he was wasting time weren’t really wasted at all. That was his writing time. Not the time when his fingers were putting words onto paper, but the time when his brain was quietly assembling the things that would eventually become words.

    I read that story years ago, and it has stuck with me. Asimov wrote it long before we started carrying devices specifically designed to fill every spare moment, but I can’t help thinking about it now.

    We’ve all summoned Azazel, but now he’s in the disguise of a smartphone.

    When I’m Doing Nothing, My Brain Isn’t

    I’ve noticed this with my own ideas. Ideas don’t generally arrive when I sit down and command myself to have one. Right. It is 10:00. I have allocated the next 45 minutes to creative thought. Begin.

    Nothing.

    The useful thought arrives in the shower, or while I’m walking somewhere, driving, lying in bed, or staring out of a train window. The common factor seems to be that I’m doing something which occupies just enough of my brain to stop me consciously trying to think, while leaving enough of it unoccupied to wander around unsupervised.

    This very article was, in fact, inspired by a recent period of boredom. I awoke at silly o’clock, ridiculously early, and my wife was still asleep. So I got up, went downstairs, and had to occupy myself until I was tired enough to return to bed, but also without disturbing her slumber.

    I picked up my phone, put it down, picked up my Kindle, put it down, perused the contents of the fridge, sat down, picked up my phone again, returned to the fridge, decided I still wasn’t hungry, and put my phone away again. I remember thinking, “God, I’m bored and I’ve nothing to do!”

    Which, in turn, reminded me of the times when I was bored and FOUND things to do.

    The seed of this essay took root that morning.

    That wandering is where quite a lot seems to happen. One thought bumps into another. Something I read three weeks ago collides with something somebody said yesterday. An old memory wanders past. Two completely unrelated ideas turn out to have something in common, or at least enough in common for me to spend the next twenty minutes wondering whether they do.

    Somewhere in that mess, occasionally, there’s an idea.

    The problem is that I’ve become very good at preventing this state from occurring. If there is a spare minute, I fill it. If I’m walking, I can listen to a podcast. If I’m on a train, I can read the news. If I’m waiting for someone, there will be something on my phone demanding attention. None of this feels particularly significant while I’m doing it. I’m just filling time.

    But that was Sims’s mistake too. He thought he was just filling time.

    Consuming Instead of Generating

    If I take my phone out while waiting for a bus, my brain doesn’t have to produce anything because something else immediately supplies the thoughts. A news story, a message, a video, someone’s opinion, someone else’s response to someone’s opinion, another video, another message. There is always something available and, increasingly, something specifically selected because a machine has calculated that I am quite likely to look at it.

    None of these things is inherently bad. I like reading things. I like hearing what other people think. I have spent an unreasonable amount of my life actively seeking out information and have no intention of stopping now. The problem is simply that there is never a gap.

    There is a difference between having nothing to think about and having nothing given to you to think about. I’m not sure we make that distinction often enough.

    Boredom Wasn’t Always Good

    I don’t want to get too nostalgic about this because boredom was, by definition, boring. Long car journeys were tedious. Waiting forty minutes for a bus in the rain wasn’t secretly a mindfulness retreat. Sitting in a waiting room didn’t automatically turn you into Isaac Newton.

    Smartphones have made those moments immeasurably better in lots of ways. I can read a book, learn something, talk to somebody on the other side of the world, listen to music, or find out where the bloody bus actually is. I’m not suggesting we throw our phones into the sea and return to an idyllic age of staring at wallpaper.

    I just wonder whether eliminating every moment of boredom was an accidental overcorrection.

    I Might Need to Be More Bored

    I’m not planning a digital detox. I know myself well enough to suspect that any grand declaration about dramatically changing my relationship with technology would last until roughly lunchtime.

    I could leave the phone in my pocket occasionally, though. Walk somewhere without listening to anything. Wait for the kettle without checking something. Sit on a train and look out of the window. Allow a queue simply to be a queue. Give my brain a few minutes in which nobody else gets to decide what enters it.

    I suspect I’ll find this surprisingly difficult, because boredom now feels uncomfortable remarkably quickly. There is an almost automatic movement towards the pocket as soon as nothing is happening. I don’t even consciously decide I’m bored. My hand apparently notices before I do.

    It might be interesting to resist it occasionally, if only to find out what my brain does when I stop giving it things to do.

    Nothing Happened

    There used to be parts of the day when nothing happened. At the time, I thought those moments were empty. Looking back, I’m not so sure they were. They were when things I’d read resurfaced, when ridiculous questions occurred to me, when I’d notice something outside the window, or when one idea had enough time to bump accidentally into another one.

    Mordecai Sims thought waiting was stealing time from his writing, then discovered it was part of the writing. I think that’s why the story has stayed with me for so long. I recognised the irritation with waiting when I first read it. These days, I recognise Sims’s mistake as well.

    I wonder how much time I’ve managed to save myself in the last fifteen or so smartphone enabled years.

    And what I used to do with it.

  • The Curious Value of Learning Things You’ll Probably Never Need

    The Curious Value of Learning Things You’ll Probably Never Need

    People have asked me all my life why I spend so much time learning things I’ll probably never need.

    To be honest, they’ve got a point.

    I don’t need to know the chemical formula for caffeine. (C₈H₁₀N₄O₂, since you asked.) I certainly don’t need to know that a 2:1 ratio of L-theanine to caffeine is generally considered the ideal combination for alertness without the jitters. I almost certainly don’t need to know how to pick a lock, open a combination padlock, or solve a Rubik’s Cube in under two minutes.

    Yet somehow these things have all found their way into my head. I seem to have developed something of a talent for learning useless things.

    Every time I go abroad, I tell myself I’ll learn a few useful phrases. “Hello.” “Thank you.” “A table for two, please.”

    Somehow that always escalates into learning how to ask for directions, apologise for my terrible pronunciation, explain that I only speak a little of the language, and enquire whether the nearest hospital is within walking distance.

    On paper, none of this seems like a sensible investment of my time.

    Then again, neither do many of my hobbies.

    The First Aid Incident

    Back in 2001 I was living in Aberdeen, working as a software developer for an oil and gas engineering company.

    To be clear, I never worked offshore. I never set foot on an oil platform. I spent my days writing software in a perfectly ordinary office.

    Naturally, I decided I ought to learn some offshore survival.

    I also became a fire warden.

    And, because apparently office life is a dangerous business, I persuaded my employer to send me on a British Red Cross first aid course. You never know when someone might suffer a particularly aggressive paper cut.

    At the end of the course I proudly received my certificate, a basic first aid kit, a copy of the British Red Cross First Aid Manual, and a rather nice canvas shoulder bag to carry it all in.

    Our instructor smiled and said, “With any luck, you’ll never need to use any of this.”

    Famous last words.

    This next part genuinely happened.

    I left the training centre, phoned my girlfriend to tell her I’d passed, crossed the road, and had barely walked a dozen feet when an elderly lady tripped over the kerb right in front of me.

    She landed heavily on the pavement, banged her elbow, knocked the wind out of herself, and split her plastic shopping bag, sending tins and groceries rolling in every direction.

    I don’t think the ink on my certificate had even finished drying.

    Within seconds I was tearing the cellophane off my brand new first aid kit, treating her injuries, calling for an ambulance, and transferring her shopping into my equally brand new British Red Cross canvas bag.

    About twenty minutes later, as the paramedics were helping her into the ambulance, my instructor walked out of the training centre.

    He looked at the ambulance.

    He looked at me.

    Then, with a wonderfully puzzled expression, silently mouthed:

    “What happened?”

    I could only shrug.

    Honestly, I wasn’t entirely sure myself.

    When Curiosity Pays Unexpected Dividends

    I’d love to tell you that this was a one-off, a bizarre coincidence that could never possibly happen again.

    Unfortunately, life seems to have other ideas.

    Fast forward to this year.

    My wife and I decided to visit Tromsø in northern Norway to see the Northern Lights.

    As always, I decided to learn a little of the local language before we travelled.

    Well, a little by my standards.

    Most people learn “hello”, “thank you”, and perhaps “two coffees, please.”

    I apparently prepare for every conceivable emergency.

    By the time we arrived I could order food, ask for directions, apologise for my dreadful Norwegian, explain that I only spoke a little of the language, ask for help, and generally muddle my way through basic conversations about the weather and what tourist destinations they’d recommend.

    Then my wife slipped on an icy pavement, broke her wrist (it later transpired), and suddenly I found myself spending the better part of a day in a Norwegian Accident & Emergency department acting as a very enthusiastic, if rather amateur, translator.

    Did I know beforehand that I’d need to ask for medical assistance in Norwegian?

    No.

    Did I learn how anyway?

    Yes.

    Did it turn out to be useful?

    Rather inconveniently… yes.

    Curiosity Doesn’t Care Whether It’s Useful

    The funny thing is, none of these things were learnt because I expected them to be useful. Unlike the Monty Python phrasebook, I very much doubt I’ll ever need to utter the immortal phrase, “My hovercraft is full of eels.” That said, do I know of a website that translates exactly that sentence into almost every language imaginable, including Pig Latin and Klingon?

    Of course I do.

    That’s never really been the point.

    I learnt these things because they interested me. Curiosity has never once asked whether something will improve my career, save me money, or even come in remotely useful. It simply points enthusiastically at something and says, “Ooh… what’s that?”

    Rabbit Holes Worth Exploring

    People still ask why I bother learning things I’ll probably never need, and the truth is that most of the time I never do. Most ADHD rabbit holes lead absolutely nowhere, and that’s perfectly fine. Every so often, however, life presents me with a bizarrely specific problem that can only be solved by knowing a bizarrely specific thing. An elderly lady falls over less than a minute after I complete a first aid course. My wife slips on the ice in northern Norway just weeks after I’ve been enthusiastically cramming conversational Norwegian. Suddenly, yesterday’s apparently pointless hobby becomes today’s unexpectedly useful skill.

    I’ve stopped asking whether something will be useful before I learn it. Experience has taught me that life has an odd sense of humour, and an even odder habit of rewarding curiosity in the most unexpected ways.

    So I’ll keep disappearing down rabbit holes, keep learning apparently useless facts, and if my wife and I ever decide to explore the Amazon rainforest, I’ll almost certainly spend a month learning enough bushcraft and jungle survival to give Bear Grylls or Ray Mears a run for their money.

    Just in case.

  • Why I Love Museums.

    Why I Love Museums.

    I have yet to visit a museum I didn’t like.

    Some have been better than others, certainly, but I have never walked out of one thinking, “Well, that was a disappointing collection of fascinating things.”

    Large or small, broad or niche, I love museums. When I’m in London they’re some of my favourite places to spend time, and in London we’re really spoiled for choice. Clustered together in South Kensington you’ve got the V&A, the Natural History Museum, and, just around the corner, the Science Museum. Up in Bloomsbury there’s the OG GOAT, the British Museum, containing some of the very best purloined and, ahem… “enthusiastically acquired” artefacts from the four corners of the globe. (Hey, let’s not get political here. – Ed.)

    Further afield there’s the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, and not forgetting my old stomping ground, the Horniman Museum in Forest Hill, complete with its famously overstuffed walrus.

    Those are just a few of my regular haunts.

    I don’t really go to museums to “learn” in the formal sense. I go because they’re one of the few places left where curiosity doesn’t need to justify itself. Nobody asks what you’re going to do with the information you’ve just discovered. Nobody expects it to improve your productivity or advance your career. Sometimes it’s enough simply to stand in front of an object and think, “Well… that’s fascinating.”

    I can happily spend hours wandering around a museum on my own. Not only do I find them endlessly fascinating, but they’re also havens of calm, quiet, and peace. Unlike the busy, bustling streets or shopping centres, nobody has ever stood next to me in a museum shouting into their mobile phone about printer cartridges.

    Well… not usually.

    There’s always the annoying exception.

    Museums Are Libraries for Things

    Books preserve ideas and knowledge.

    They also preserve some truly dreadful plots, improbable narratives, and larger-than-life characters, but I digress.

    Museums preserve objects.

    Every exhibit has a story.

    Every exhibit has a history.

    Every exhibit has a purpose.

    Every exhibit has a journey.

    A Roman coin isn’t just a coin. It may have been somebody’s wages. It may have paid for a meal, a night’s lodging, or a particularly good mug of mead. Perhaps it was dropped and lost in the mud, or perhaps somebody carefully buried it for safekeeping and never returned.

    A steam engine isn’t just a collection of iron and brass. It represents the Industrial Revolution in miniature. It may have pumped water from a mine, powered a textile mill, or hauled ore from Cornwall to London while quietly transforming the world around it.

    Objects are never just “things”.

    They’re tiny windows into somebody else’s life.

    I’ve often thought that museums are what happen when humanity collectively decides, “We probably shouldn’t throw this away. It might be important later.”

    In many respects, a museum is simply a much larger, considerably better organised version of every family’s junk drawer.

    The difference is that somebody has already rummaged through the drawer and decided which objects tell the best stories. Museums don’t really preserve things. They preserve curiosity. Every display case is an invitation to ask, “Who made this?”, “Why did they make it?”, and “What was life like for the person who used it?” I don’t always need the answers. Sometimes the questions are the interesting part.

    Curiosity Without Purpose

    Modern life sends us some rather contradictory messages.

    On the one hand we’re expected to keep up with the latest technology, the newest trends, and whatever today’s fashionable productivity hack happens to be. On the other, we’re encouraged to own less, declutter our lives, and throw away anything that doesn’t “spark joy”.

    The trouble is, in my case, almost everything sparks joy.

    Museums quietly reject the entire premise.

    Modern life constantly asks:

    “What’s the point?”

    Museums simply reply:

    “Because it’s interesting.”

    And, for me at least, that’s more than enough.

    I can happily spend twenty minutes studying a fossil, a Viking comb, or a display of Victorian kitchen utensils. Not because they’ll help me earn more money or make my day-to-day life more efficient, but because they’re fascinating. Sometimes they’re educational. Sometimes they’re beautiful. Often they’re all of the above.

    The Peace and Quiet Is Underrated

    One of the things I appreciate most about museums is something people rarely mention.

    They’re quiet.

    They’re orderly.

    They’re predictable.

    There’s an almost reverential atmosphere about them. People naturally lower their voices, slow down, and actually pay attention to what’s around them.

    For me, that’s the complete opposite of a shopping centre.

    Shopping centres are frenetic, noisy, crowded, brightly lit, and full of people apparently engaged in some sort of competitive speed-walking event. I find them exhausting.

    Museums have the opposite effect.

    They calm me down.

    They centre me.

    I’ve quite happily spent the best part of an entire day in a museum, especially if it has a decent café and an excellent bookshop attached.

    Every Object Has a Story

    The larger museums cover an astonishing breadth of human experience. One minute I’m looking at Egyptian artefacts thousands of years old, the next I’m staring at inventions from the late twentieth century.

    There’s something distinctly unsettling about visiting a museum to look at ancient history and suddenly finding the exact same Trimphone your parents had sitting proudly behind glass.

    As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’m something of a collector myself. I have numerous collections of things I find interesting, quirky, or simply too fascinating to leave behind.

    Museums do exactly the same thing.

    Just on a considerably larger scale.

    Every object once belonged to somebody.

    Somebody designed it, made it, used it, valued it, then sadly lost it.

    Then, somehow, it ended up behind glass because somebody else recognised that it was worth preserving.

    There’s something deeply human about that.

    Whenever I visit a museum I find myself thinking less about the objects themselves and more about the people behind them. Someone sat at a workbench and made this, carried it, repaired it when it broke. And then much later someone else decided it was too important to throw away. Long after they’ve gone, a small part of their life survives behind a sheet of glass, quietly telling its story to complete strangers. I find that oddly comforting.

    We Preserve What We Value

    Museums aren’t simply rooms full of old “stuff”.

    Because every museum is curated, every museum accidentally reveals what a society believes is worth remembering.

    Sometimes that’s kings, queens, great battles, famous paintings, or technological breakthroughs.

    Sometimes it’s kitchen utensils, railway tickets, children’s toys, wine goblets, or obscure calculating devices.

    If I’m honest, it’s often the ordinary objects that fascinate me the most.

    Civilisation wasn’t built solely by kings and generals.

    It was built day by day by ordinary people.

    People who packed lunches.

    People who worried about warm clothing.

    People who needed decent shoes.

    People who wrote shopping lists on clay tablets and prayed to pantheons of strange gods.

    Those are the people I find myself wondering about.

    Permission to Wonder

    This is probably my favourite reason for loving museums.

    Somewhere along the line many adults stop asking, “What does this do?” or “Why does it work that way?”

    We lose something of our childlike curiosity.

    Museums quietly encourage exactly the opposite.

    In fact, they almost insist upon it. They invite adults to behave like children again, in the very best sense of the word. To point at things. To ask daft questions. To become excited by a beautifully engineered clock, a dinosaur skeleton, or a collection of eighteenth-century spoons that nobody has thought about for two hundred years. Curiosity, after all, isn’t childish. It’s one of the most profoundly human qualities we possess.

    Every display case seems to say:

    “Go on. Be curious. Ask questions. That’s what I’m here for.”

    If you ask me, and seeing as you’re reading my blog I’ll assume you do, that’s rather lovely.

    My Perfect Day

    My perfect museum visit involves wandering around without a map.

    I don’t think of it as aimless wandering.

    I prefer to call it exploring.

    I’ll spend far too long reading information boards, become unexpectedly fascinated by a single fossil, discover something I didn’t even know existed, and then inevitably wander into the gift shop.

    There I’ll buy a book.

    Then another book.

    Perhaps a T-shirt.

    Then realise I’ve bought too much and purchase a tote bag to carry everything.

    At which point I’ll probably buy another book because, well, I’m already there.

    I may as well make the most of it.

    The museum gift shop is where my wallet quietly resigns itself to the inevitable.

    Closing Thoughts

    Perhaps that’s why I love museums so much.

    They aren’t really buildings full of old objects.

    They’re quiet celebrations of human curiosity.

    Every display case says:

    “This mattered.”

    “Somebody made this.”

    “Somebody discovered this.”

    “Somebody thought this was worth keeping.”

    In a world obsessed with the newest thing, museums gently remind me that old things still have stories to tell, and that knowledge doesn’t need to earn its keep to have value.

    More than anything else, museums give me permission to remain curious. To keep asking questions. To keep learning. To keep wondering how things work and why people made them in the first place.

    Growing older shouldn’t mean becoming less curious.

    If anything, I rather hope it means becoming more so.

    Besides…

    Where else can I spend an afternoon looking at medieval surgical instruments, Roman pottery, steam engines, dinosaur skeletons and an alarmingly overstuffed walrus without anybody questioning my life choices?

  • Why Neurodivergent People Often Become Collectors

    Why Neurodivergent People Often Become Collectors

    I sit here in my home office, surrounded by many little boxes, each containing a strange assortment of items.

    If you’ve read my About Pete page (or followed me here from my Mastodon profile), you’ll know I am a collector of collections. Not content with collecting just one type of thing, I somehow ended up collecting multiple collections. So much so that my collections have effectively become a collection in their own right.

    A collection squared, if you will.

    How did this happen?

    More importantly, why did this happen?

    I used to simply pick up things I found interesting. At some point I realised I didn’t merely “own some things”. I had somehow become the curator of a growing museum dedicated to obscure enthusiasm.

    Slide rules. Rubik’s Cubes. Cravats. Books. Albums and CDs. Fossils and minerals. Obsolete retro technology. Raspberry Pis.

    Left unsupervised long enough, I would probably begin alphabetising pebbles or categorising sawdust!

    What is it about collecting that I find so satisfying? What part of me does it appease? What itch does it scratch?

    Speaking as an autistic person, I know from first-hand experience that neurodivergent brains often experience:

    • overwhelm
    • anxiety around unpredictability
    • sensory chaos
    • cognitive overload

    Collections, and the act of collecting, provide:

    • systems
    • categories
    • rules
    • predictability
    • control

    A collection is a tiny universe whose logic makes sense; a small island of order in an otherwise bewilderingly noisy world.

    Many neurodivergent people possess brains that seem permanently configured to look for patterns. We sort things. We categorise things. We organise things into neat little systems that make perfect sense to us and absolutely nobody else.

    Give us a collection and we won’t simply see a shelf full of objects.

    We’ll see relationships.

    A Rubik’s Cube isn’t just a Rubik’s Cube. It’s a particular mechanism, produced by a particular manufacturer, with a particular turning feel and a particular place in the evolutionary history of twisty puzzles.

    A slide rule isn’t simply a calculator from before calculators. It’s a fascinating collection of scales, layouts and design decisions reflecting the mathematical needs of a particular era.

    Books aren’t merely books. They’re editions, printings, cover variations and publishing histories.

    The same applies to fossils, stamps, coins, model trains, vintage computers, or whatever flavour of obsession has currently attached itself to the brain.

    What often fascinates us isn’t simply the object itself but the system surrounding it.

    The classifications.

    The subtle differences.

    The exceptions to the rules.

    The one obscure variation that only three people on Earth appear to care about.

    Most people look at a shelf and see “a collection”.

    A pattern-seeking brain looks at the same shelf and sees a map.

    Every object has a place. Every category has a purpose. Every missing item creates a tiny itch in the back of the mind that quietly whispers:

    “You know exactly what’s supposed to go there.”

    The collection becomes more than a pile of things. It becomes a system to explore, understand and occasionally obsess over.

    And for brains that derive genuine pleasure from finding order amidst chaos, that’s immensely satisfying.

    Of course, collections aren’t just about categorisation and pattern-seeking. If they were, a spreadsheet would be every collector’s dream and nobody has ever become emotionally attached to a spreadsheet.

    Well… almost nobody. :embarrassed smiley:

    Over time, collections become something more than the objects themselves.

    A favourite book isn’t merely paper, ink and glue. A battered old slide rule isn’t simply a calculating device. A particular Rubik’s Cube isn’t just coloured plastic.

    They become markers in the timeline of our lives.

    Some remind us of places we’ve been.

    Others remind us of people we’ve known.

    Some represent achievements, discoveries or periods when life felt particularly good.

    Others survived difficult times and somehow became associated with comfort, familiarity and stability.

    For many neurodivergent people, objects can provide a reassuring sense of permanence in a world that often feels unpredictable.

    People change.

    Jobs change.

    Circumstances change.

    Favourite television programmes get cancelled.

    Entire social media platforms appear, dominate the internet for five years and then vanish into obscurity.

    But that slightly battered book you’ve owned for twenty years?

    It’s still there.

    That curious fossil sitting on the shelf?

    Still there.

    The collection remains a small constant in an ever-changing world.

    Objects also possess several advantages over people.

    They don’t judge your interests.

    They don’t suddenly decide they no longer like you.

    They don’t require careful interpretation of facial expressions, body language or implied meanings hidden beneath three layers of social convention.

    Most importantly, they don’t initiate small talk.

    I’ve yet to encounter a slide rule that felt compelled to discuss the weather.

    A collection is predictable. It has structure. It behaves according to understandable rules. You know where things belong and what purpose they serve.

    In a world that can sometimes feel noisy, confusing and chaotic, there is something deeply comforting about that.

    Perhaps that’s why collections often become emotional anchors.

    They’re not merely accumulations of objects.

    They’re accumulations of memories, interests, experiences and fragments of identity.

    They’re little pieces of ourselves arranged neatly on shelves.

    The Dopamine Hunt

    Then there’s the dopamine hunt.

    If autism often provides the catalogue, ADHD frequently supplies the expedition.

    For many collectors, the real excitement isn’t owning the item.

    It’s finding it.

    The search itself becomes the hobby.

    Tracking down a rare edition.

    Discovering an obscure variant.

    Learning some wonderfully unnecessary fact about a manufacturing change made in 1973.

    Completing a set that has been taunting you for years.

    It’s part treasure hunt, part side gather quest and part Pokémon for adults with back pain.

    An ADHD brain can derive astonishing amounts of happiness from locating a very specific obscure object that nobody else on Earth appears to care about.

    Hours of searching, weeks of waiting and countless dead ends can all evaporate the moment the target is finally acquired.

    Of course, this creates a slight problem.

    The dopamine was never entirely in the object.

    It was in the chase.

    Which explains why collectors are often found muttering the dangerous phrase:

    “I’m only looking…”

    Right before accidentally acquiring three more items for the collection.

    Some Collections Are Apparently More Respectable Than Others

    One of the more fascinating quirks of society is that some collections are considered sophisticated while others are considered evidence that you should perhaps be supervised more closely.

    Collect vintage wines and you’re a connoisseur.

    Collect rare watches and you’re an investor.

    Assemble a garage full of classic cars and people nod approvingly while using words like heritage and craftsmanship.

    Collect Rubik’s Cubes, slide rules or obscure retro clothing and suddenly you’re “that bloke with all the cubes” or “that fat prat in the cravat”.

    The strange thing is that the underlying behaviour is often identical.

    In both cases someone is spending considerable amounts of money acquiring objects they don’t strictly need, learning unnecessary amounts of information about them and becoming disproportionately excited when they discover a rare variant.

    Apparently spending £10,000 on a watch is a sensible investment.

    Spending £10 on a forty-year-old slide rule is a cry for help.

    I remain unconvinced by this distinction.

    The Danger Zone

    Of course, like most things that bring us comfort and enjoyment, collecting can occasionally wander into less healthy territory.

    A collection can become clutter if it grows faster than our ability to manage it.

    The thrill of acquisition can become an expensive habit.

    The search for the next item can sometimes become more important than appreciating the things we already have.

    For some people, collections can also become a form of avoidance; a way of retreating into a familiar and controllable world when life outside feels difficult, uncertain or overwhelming.

    There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of this.

    Most hobbies have their excesses.

    The trick, as with so many things, is balance.

    A collection should enrich your life, not consume it.

    It should be a source of joy, curiosity and comfort rather than stress, debt or obligation.

    After all, if your collection starts requiring its own collection to keep track of it, it may be time for a quiet sit-down and a cup of tea.

    Physical Objects in a Digital Age

    In an increasingly digital world, I sometimes wonder whether part of the appeal of collections is simply that they are real.

    So much of modern life exists behind glass screens.

    Books become files.

    Music becomes subscriptions.

    Photographs become pixels.

    Entire friendships can be reduced to a collection of messages stored on somebody else’s server.

    There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of that. The digital world has given us remarkable things.

    But digital experiences can sometimes feel strangely weightless.

    A physical object occupies space in the world.

    A book has weight in your hands.

    A fossil connects you to a creature that lived millions of years before the first human wondered where they left their keys.

    A slide rule carries the fingerprints of the engineers, scientists and students who once used it to understand the universe.

    These things have history.

    They’ve travelled through time.

    They existed before you discovered them and, with a little care, they’ll probably continue to exist long after you’re gone.

    Perhaps that’s part of what makes them meaningful.

    When I hold an old slide rule, I’m not simply looking at an obsolete calculating device.

    I’m holding a small piece of human ingenuity.

    A reminder that generations of curious people spent their lives trying to understand the world around them.

    In that sense, collections aren’t really about ownership.

    They’re about stewardship.

    For a little while, these objects become part of our story.

    Then one day they’ll become part of someone else’s.

    There’s something rather comforting about that.

    In Closing

    So yes, perhaps neurodivergent people do collect unusual things.

    But maybe that is because we notice unusual beauty.

    Maybe we find joy in patterns other people overlook, or comfort in systems that make sense to us, or delight in a slightly odd shelf of interesting nonsense that happens to look brilliant in our own particular internal lighting.

    Or maybe we just like collecting things that make us happy and occasionally confuse visitors.

    Honestly, it is probably all of the above.

    And really, that seems like a perfectly reasonable way to spend a life.