Interest

Understanding Interest

How is a human's interest defined?
This is an attempt to try to determine why we do what we do.

A first question may be: what is it that determines your interests?

Furthermore: what factors and conditions influence the dynamics and fluctuations of your interests over time?

Your interests are those things that captivate your attention to some degree

Fantasizing about pleasure vs experiencing pleasure
Is it pleasure to fantasize about pleasure?

What does it mean to be interested in or to have interest in something? anything?

What is interesting about it?
Where does interest come from?
Why be interested in anything?

What differentiates what you are and are not interested in?

Do we not act according to that which interests us?
Our interests form the basis from which we decide what to do every day.

An individual interest is evaluated by its net pros and cons - pleasure vs pain.
For example, each interest has associated with it a certain set of pros and cons. If the pros outweigh the cons, we will have an interest. If the cons outweigh the pros, we will not have an interest.

What we decide to do every day is determined by the weight of each interest.
The weight of each interest in our mind determines what we will actually decide to do with ourselves. In other words, some interest we have a stronger desire to do than others.
see Graphical Representation of Modes of Thought

Interest is different from desire and pleasure. Pleasure is the result of fulfilling our interests. Desire is the feeling we get with respect to our interests.

But where do our interests come from? Our interests are associated with the feelings or desires. We want to experience a certain feeling, and so we look to interests that will help in finding that feeling. For example, we feel like experiencing a good sweet taste in our mouth, so maybe our interest will be in a cookie, ice cream, or cake.

Our interests reflect the people, places, or things that will help us in satisfying our desires so that we can experience pleasure.

So then once again it comes down to pleasure and pain. Seeking to find pleasure and trying to stay away from pain.

Yet how do we find pain so frequently? Because as stated above, there are pros and cons associated with each interest. For example, when we sit, the pro is comfort, the con is back pain. We sit hunched rather than upright because it feels more comfortable, but over time, that posture will lead to back pain. We sit rather than stand because sitting is more comfortable. we sit because we are at work trying to make money. Our interest is money. The pro is that we make money, the con is that we have to work. But our interest is in having stability for ourselves, being able to live under a roof, to be able to buy food, to be able to provide for our family. It all comes back to the simple goal of trying to find pleasure.

Can one control what interests one has?

Factors that Affect Interest

What makes a person interested in something?
And what affects a person's interest in a particular thing over time?
What factors influence a human's interest / disinterest?

- The more one is subjected to a particular thing, the less one has interest in it, or one becomes more bored.
- The longer one spends time apart from a particular thing, the easier it is to lose attachment to it.
- But the longer one spends time apart from a particular thing, the stronger the feeling one will have when one experiences it again.
- One is interested in things that result in pleasure for oneself.
- One is not interested in things that result in pain for oneself.
- The greater the result in pleasure the greater the interest.
- The greater the result in pain the greater the disinterest.
- Things that might involve risk of getting caught may make us more interested in them.
- Something that someone else has may make us interested in that thing.

Factors that Affect Interest - Time

Interest in an activity vs time engaged in that activity

Factors that Affect Interest - Acquiring

Is it more fun to play with the thousands of gems you have?
Or is it more fun to go out and look for one more gem?
This is part of the human conundrum

Lets explore

We have less interest in things of our possession than we do of things not in our possession.
does this not go to the newborn child that wants to grab something in another child's possession, but then when he or she does get it, immediately loses interest in it and puts it down?

This is inherent in us from birth, throughout our whole lives.

Why?

Why can't we be content with what we have?

Why the continuous need to acquire, simply because we are not satisfied with what we have and we want more?

Am i saying why can't we be indefinitely fascinated with a block of wood? No.

Am i talking about fascination?

There is an inherent need built into us that drives us to acquire that which we do not have.

Types of Interests

You may find yourself preoccupied with why all of a sudden someone does not call you back. Or if you are rejected when asking someone out. You may feel self-conscious about yourself, and wonder what's wrong with yourself. Therefore, you develop an interest stemming from a perception you have about the way you perceive others view you. You take in and interpret. You let external inputs affect you by the way you process them. But, by focusing attention to this, you are showing interest in this specific aspect.

Maybe you are not satisfied with certain aspects of the way you look and you become preoccupied by that. By directing your attention towards these perceived issues, you have developed an interest in these perceptions.

If you feel yourself sexually drawn to other people, you develop an interest in these people and the certain characteristics they possess which help to create this attraction. But it is by taking in these inputs from your outside world and processing them that the interest develops.

It is your choice whether you choose to have an interest or not. Nothing external to you forces you. It is the way you process what goes on external to you in which you create the interest yourself. By learning to appreciate things you never thought of before, you can develop new interests. The more ingrained an interest is, the harder it is to cut it off from you.

Eliminating an Interest

Need to learn how to become disinterested.
How do you take something you are attracted to, and no longer become attracted to it?
How do you take something that has been ingrained in you over the years and you have become conditioned to, and no longer be interested in it?
How do you take something you are genetically programmed to be interested in, and no longer have interest in it?
How do you remove an interest?
How do you take something you are interested in, and no longer be interested in it?

Why would someone want to remove or eliminate an interest?

You may have certain interests that in the short term are desirable but in the long term are not desirable.
You may have interests that over the long term, are deteriorating.

Before attempting to eliminate an interest, you should have justification for the elimination of the interest, otherwise why do it?
You should be able to prove to yourself that you have good reason for the pursuit of eliminating an interest.
You must also be steadfast, and maintain focus over time, having continual understanding of this justification.

A large aspect of removing an interest has to do with letting go.
How does one let go? There are a number of methods to employ. See the section "Letting Go".

The key is to eliminate the interest.

If you don't cut it off at the root, then it will always come back.

It has to become uninteresting.
Disinteresting.

Literally.

Truly.

The more interests you add, the more complications.

How do you remove an interest?
So that you no longer have interest in a particular thing?

When an interest is tied to a feeling, or experience.
And whether that feeling or experience is perceived as good or bad.
Where good equates to pleasure and bad equates to pain.

Interests are associated with pleasure/pain.

If i have an interest, does it have to continue to be a part of me?
Will it always be a part of me?
Does it have to be a part of me through my whole life?