Obsession

This I believe: I believe in obsession. And no, I am not talking about the creepy, bad rep that the word obsession has got. I am in no way, promoting stalking or otherwise unhealthy forms of affections. And no I am most certainly not talking about you, little miss, “O.M.G. I am like totally obsessed with [fill in teen heartthrob here].” No I’m talking about something else, something I hope to sufficiently describe in less than 500 words.

I remember my dad always saying when I was growing up, “Find something you love, something you yearn to know everything about, something you need.” I think what he meant to say, or perhaps what he was saying, was “find something you’re obsessed with.” at least, that’s how I take it.

I love my father, but at the time, when I was about nine years old, I couldn’t quite fathom what it was that he was talking about, and I think that was because I hadn’t found my obsession. It was only a few years later that I found it: drawing. In every class I find my self doodling people I know or I wish I knew, people I made up and people I saw once, I draw places I’ve been and want go, places I made up, or saw once, I draw dreams and thoughts and the world how I see it. As E. E. Cummings once said, “Life, is a matter of being born. But art is a question of being alive,” and at this completely obsessed point, I couldn’t agree more.

Obsession is quirky Petri dish from which genius is born; this I believe.