One of the silver linings for getting older (and not like I see myself as old per se, I’m still in denial there) is a greater ability to spot patterns of behavior in yourself and your closest people. One of mine that I’ve been keeping an eye on is how I engage in hobbies, or learning anything new. Like clockwork, I am on a six-week cycle for new hobbies.

I watched a playthrough of the Arkham Horror card game (shoutout to PlayingBoardgames on YouTube) – I picked up a starter box – we played through the Night of the Zealot – I became obsessed and built out a gigantic collection of investigators and scenarios – we play it non-stop – I invested in storage solutions to manage the collection – I think about it every waking moment – …

I’ve seen Remnant 2 (Gunfire Games) is on a deep Steam discount – I remembered the first Remnant: From the Ashes incredibly fondly – I’d seen nothing but positive takes on Remnant 2, including the frankly amazing series of steps the community uncovered to unlock a hidden class – I pick it up and jumped in – it grabs my imagination and becomes an instant classic – I fell down the rabbit hole of quirky and interesting builds on YouTube (shoutout to SheenShots) – I built a tracking spreadsheet in Google Sheets and installed the RemnantSaveManager – …

I had the urge to revisit my favourite fictional book series – I dug through the study bookshelves to find my tattered paperback copies from two decades ago – they were falling to pieces from being read and re-read over the years – I picked up the first of the trilogy (of trilogies!) on Kindle and greedily devoured it -books two through six followed suit, one by one – hovered over the “Buy it Now” button on the seventh – …

The G1 Climax was rapidly approaching – I re-subbed to my lapsed New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) World account – I watched recent matches from each of the entrants to get back up to speed – I put together a tipping bracket for my wife and myself to track our poor attempts at prediction (mine much poorer than hers, it turned out) – every block match was appointment viewing – we watched the resurgence of Tetsuya Naito’s main event ambitions – we looked ahead to the upcoming Wrestle Kingdom 18 and dreamed of being there in person – …

The common thread through all of these experiences; they were all encapsulated in a neat, six-week block. It is so reliable I can set my calendar by it. I’ve learned over time to recognise the fourth week in any given obsession and to critically examine any potential purchases beyond that point, knowing there’s a good chance it won’t arrive before my interest has (unfortunately) drifted to something else.

The next step is trying to work out how to turn this quirk into a superpower…..

Also, for fun, can anyone guess which fantasy series I’m referring to? In addition to the photo (which could easily be used in a reverse Google Search to find the correct answer, if you wanted to shortcut the thinking part of this question), here’s a clue: The author is an award-winning Australian novelist from Hobart, Tasmania. Huge kudos for anyone who manages to get it right (image search or otherwise!)