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What shapes our interests?

treetophideaway

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Jan 2, 2017
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64
MBTI Type
ISFP
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Where do we get our interests from, specifically the ones that are very different from what we learn from our families growing up? This probably delves somewhat or maybe a lot into the whole nature vs. nurture thing. I stand somewhere in the middle I guess. I want to say I lean more towards nurture because I know we learn most our habits and interests from those we are raised by/those we observe, but I have to believe some of it is within our nature as well because I personally have interests/habits that I have no idea where they come from which make me seem like the oddball of my family. It's those things that I'm wondering where they come from, where I learned them or picked them up from. I can't say I learned them from my family or even my close friends. They're just things that seemed to be ingrained in my personality, but where did they come from. Like for instance, I love getting piercings but most of my family is very conservative and anti-piercing. I never really had pets growing up, but yet my brother is a dog/fish person and I am definitely a cat person. I love Chinese food, but I never once had Chinese food growing up in my house. I always wanted to try Chinese food even though I'd never had it. These things that we're interested in but have no learned basis for being interested in - where do these interests come from? My family sees some of my interests as some type of rebelliousness, but it's not. I don't get piercings because my parents hate them; I just like them. I don't hate girly, lacy, frilly, floral things because that's how my sister dresses; I just think they're ugly. So I don't know where I picked up interests that I didn't learn. I didn't learn them from anyone around me and once I found these interests I had to seek out people with similar interests. When I tried to explain this thought to my family/friends, they said it didn't make sense so I'm hoping some of you will understand what I'm saying here. Thoughts/opinions?
 

Quick

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Jan 8, 2018
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217
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INFX
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4w3
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sp/sx
Where do interests come from?

That is a loaded question if I ever saw one.

The thing about interests is that they are basically a manifestation of what our unconscious does with the symbol. How our mind comes to the conclusion to pursue this or that (interests in other words) is not fully known IIRC.

You are getting into some pretty deep shit with this, OP.
 

á´…eparted

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Jan 25, 2014
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Much of my interests are rooted in innate things. The cores being the types of asthetics I naturally have been drawn to, and a lot of curiosity and desire to understand how things work.
 

Quick

New member
Joined
Jan 8, 2018
Messages
217
MBTI Type
INFX
Enneagram
4w3
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
Much of my interests are rooted in innate things. The cores being the types of asthetics I naturally have been drawn to, and a lot of curiosity and desire to understand how things work.

That's actually a pretty good answer.
 
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