Simple Thought

I'd like to start posting more of my thought sketches. Just sketches, not grand thought-out thesis papers. Just enough to record for myself that I'm actually thinking and progressing, and reach out to others who want to think things through alongside me.

It's occurred to me lately that a major reason I no longer feel happy when learning new things is because I've become insanely obsessed with becoming a *perfect* expert on every topic I brush up against. I must focus on the most important and useful subjects, I must use only the most authoritative sources, I must memorize every random factoid, I must internalize and act on all the implications, I must be able to explain it to others in my own words, and I must go further still to synthesize brand new insights. It's exhausting, especially to try to do with 20 mini-interests at one time, so of course I'm not having fun anymore. Focusing solely on Asperger's Syndrome the past week has been emotionally tumultuous, but also an amazing experience! I'd forgotten what it was like to learn because I can and not because I felt it was my duty to do so. I forgot what it was like to be so full to the brim of excitement about a subject that I literally can't put it aside.

The other major reason I wasn't having fun is because of depression, pure and simple. I wonder which came first, the "too depressed to do things for casual fun", or the "depressed because I believe the things I pride myself on doing well are actually shallow/meaningless"?