the.com/obsession
love that forgot where the exit was and decided to stay forever.
means A persistent, intrusive thought or fixation that grips the mind and refuses to let go, often beyond one's control.
from From Latin 'obsidere,' to sit down before, to besiege — built from 'ob-' (against, before) and 'sedere' (to sit). The image is military: an army camped outside your walls, going nowhere. Originally an obsession was a hostile spirit lurking around a person from the outside (as opposed to possession, which got in). Over time the besieging force moved indoors, from demons to thoughts that lay siege to the mind itself.
- brain chemistry
- shares serotonin patterns with OCD sufferers
- origin
- Latin obsidere: to besiege, to sit before
- creative fuel
- powered most masterpieces and a few restraining orders
- narrow focus
- thinking can starve everything else of attention
captain ahab's white whale — herman melville's 1851 novel moby dick, the ultimate fictional obsession driving a man to destruction
howard hughes's aircraft — billionaire spent decades obsessing over the spruce goose, an experimental plane that flew once in 1947
napoleon's invasion of russia — 1812 campaign where obsession with conquest led to the deaths of 400,000+ soldiers and his downfall