Today I thought I'd write a bit about obsessions. I didn't think of it, it was suggested to me. You can see HERE who and why suggested it to me. Maybe you can get a useful suggestion too.
Obsession sounds kind of scary, doesn't it? Sounds like a disease, a mental illness. I don't know if it is, so I'm going to look up a definition, to make sure I understand what I'm supposed to do.
Well, I looked... and I didn't like what I found:
Obsession is, in medicine and psychology, a disorder of the will that manifests itself in fixed ideas and an irresistible desire to do a compulsive act, which the subject perceives as absurd, but which he cannot help doing. This inappropriate image or idea returns persistently to the field of consciousness, producing a tormenting preoccupation.Source
But I'm glad I learned something because I realized I didn't see obsession that way. I learned that there are three main types of obsessions:
ideational obsession, when ideas, doubts, scruples, and obsessive ideas come to mind that we cannot escape. I suffer from this at night, when I wake up and can't fall asleep.
phobic obsession, which manifests itself in obsessive fears. Fear of certain diseases without actually suffering from that disease. Fear of cancer, I can say that I have this fear, with each more intense and lasting pain. Fortunately, so far it's been an unfounded fear.
impulsive obsession, is the obsessive fear of committing criminal acts or acts outside morality and education. I admit that I had this fear too, in the sense of not committing such things by mistake and carelessness.
I hope I haven't bored you by sharing what I've learned today. I thought it might be useful to a reader like me, who has not been interested so far in learning the meaning of the word obsession.
I thought there were other obsessions, that's what I thought of when I decided to write about this topic. I thought and hoped that there would be more beautiful and less dangerous obsessions. Obsession for a flower, obsession for a perfume...
I dare say these obsessions are more intense passions, taken beyond the meaning of the word passion.
If it is not, it means I have the wrong subject because I wanted to talk about my obsession with the sea!
My passion for the sea started late. As a child, I was not interested. I grew up in the country, somewhere between hills and mountains, a varied landscape that took all my attention. A place very far from the sea.
After I moved to the city I started hearing more and more about the sea. After coming back from summer vacation we were asked how we spent that vacation. Many colleagues said they went to the sea... I started to be curious and slowly the desire to see the sea grew inside me. It didn't happen quickly.
I first went to the sea when I was 18 and fell in love with it. For me, the sea meant freedom, which I didn't have at home or school. Since then, from the 70s until now, I have gone to the sea every year.
I think it can be said that I have a passion for the sea, who reads what I wrote above can understand that it is a passion, but I know it is more than that!
I consider it an obsession.
I don't even think it's a real passion.
If it were, I'd have to be attracted to all things sea-related. I should be drawn to swimming in the sea, but I'm afraid of it. I should want to sail, but I'm afraid of it. When I go to sea I should always keep my eyes on the sea, but that doesn't happen either!
Instead, after I come back from the sea I start thinking about the next holiday... to the sea. I can't wait for time to pass, for the seasons to pass, for the end of spring to come, for summer to come, for the beginning of autumn to come, for the time to go to the sea to come.
Hardly a day goes by without me thinking of the sea. The sea means so much more to me than the expanse of water. That almost endless expanse of water gathers at its shore everything I love.
I remember a line from a movie, I don't remember which one...
"Babe, you have an obsession!"
Yes, I have an obsession.
The Sea!
The topic received for posting requires us to talk about two obsessions we think we have. One old and one current.
My obsession with the sea is both old and current. Perhaps it would cover both requirements. However, I would mention an older obsession than the one for the sea. The sea at first was not an obsession, it turned over time from passion to obsession.
It was an obsession of my teenage years. Childhood and adolescence spent in a communist country also meant a childhood and adolescence with many deprivations. I was born ten years after Romania entered the Russian sphere of influence and was forced to switch to communism.
Communism meant a denial of capitalism and the communist ideology rejected and banned everything related to democracy and Western lifestyle.
We had no access to Western culture, no access to the Western way of life, clothing, and fashion.
Every teenager wanted to have access to Western music, clothes, and movies. Sometimes a Western film would escape to the cinema, I don't know how that happened.
On one such occasion, I saw the film Blow-up, in which I could see London in the 60s, the beginning of pop-rock music and fashion, the way young people dressed. The main hero in the film is a fashion photographer.
In the whole film, he had one outfit: A shirt, dark green velvet jacket and white jeans. This outfit remained in my thoughts and desires for many years, it was my ideal dress. It was an obsession...
Then my obsession slowly moved to a brand of jeans. Lee!
If there was one item of clothing that was most desired in the 60s and 70s by young people in Romania, it was jeans. There were a few privileged people who wore jeans, but the vast majority only dreamt about it. I don't know why I stopped on the Lee brand. Probably influenced by someone. I longed to own a pair, dreamed, and thought about it all the time.
Now I might buy them but it seems to me not the same cut and material. I'm not interested anymore...
All the photos are mine, except the two that refer to the movie Blow Up. These are YouTube captures.
