Why do I jump from one interest to another?
You start with pottery in the spring, move to Japanese in the summer, and pick up a guitar by autumn. The beginning is always joyful. You buy the equipment, read every guide, and tell everyone about it. A few weeks later, a different idea seems more attractive. The previous hobby goes on a shelf. Over time, you collect a long list of beginnings but no deep knowledge.
Seneca on reading
Two thousand years ago, Seneca wrote to his friend Lucilius about the habit of reading many authors without depth. He was not impressed by this approach. His verdict was: “Everywhere means nowhere.”
Seneca compared a restless mind to food that leaves the body without nourishing it, or a plant that is moved so often it cannot take root.
The traveller and the friend
To explain this, Seneca used an example unrelated to books:
“When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends.”
— Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 2, “On discursiveness in reading”, tr. Richard M. Gummere
An acquaintance is someone you have simply met. A friend is someone you stayed with long enough to change each other. Every new interest is an introduction. None of them receives the time required to become a part of who you are.
The moment it stops being new
The problem is rarely a lack of passion. Passion is usually high at the start. The shift happens when the novelty fades. This is the point where an interest could become a friend: the first plateau, a boring week, or the realization that the activity requires effort.
Seneca noted that “in reading of many books is distraction.” He was describing the state of never arriving.
Some people move to new cities hoping to leave themselves behind; that restlessness has its own page. The feeling that nothing is ever enough is a separate question.
Which of my interests could have become a friend if I had stayed with it longer?
Epimelea is an app built around the existential school. The conversation carries over from one meeting to the next. The archive is encrypted on the device and belongs to the person who wrote it.
About the app: an AI therapist for long-term therapy
This page is about a school of psychotherapy. It is not medical advice and not emergency help. If you are in danger right now, contact your local emergency number, or find a helpline in your country at findahelpline.com.