five thousand shades of blue
Friday, October 05, 2001
Obsessions are a funny thing. When I was in high school, I was such a . If those guys had actually been men I knew, I probably could have been brought up on stalking charges. ;) Every I could find at the record shop and ordered some through mail order that they
didn't. I could go on about it, but I won't
because I already have.
Flash forward to senior year of college. I had a room in the lower floor of a house off campus that I shared (the house, not the room!) with a female friend and three male computer science majors. Take a wild guess what their favourite show was. Yup,
TNG. I got sucked in during what must have been the end of the fourth season; how I had managed to miss it prior to this is no great mystery, since I had not previously been a fan of science fiction or .
Man, I fell for this show, and I fell hard. Within a few months of catching repeats on the local Fox channel, I was and posting to . My love of the show got me associated with -- heck,
forming -- a few internet fan groups, which then led to many friendships (many of which I still have today), the effects of which still trickle down and affect my life in lots of ways. After TNG ended, my interest in the "" waned considerably. The local tv stations don't show reruns anymore, and it'd been close to 3 years since I had ...
...until Monday. The marathon on
TNN. It brought back a lot of really good memories, and in some ways, it was like watching episodes for the first time again, since it had been so long since I'd seen them.
I say "funny" because as we've watched this, I've sort of developed three discrete stages for experiencing these sorts of pop culture obsessions. There's the obsession itself, the complete and utter way it seems to permeate every aspect of your life. Then we move to "getting over the obsession / embarrassment that you ever took any part in the obsession". Finally, acceptance / nostalgia: revisiting the obsession through the filter of experience and wisdom, remembering the fun, and recognizing that there was indeed a basis for the obsession (even if you did go a little overboard).
is
this just not enough…?
