The Power of Obsession: the BeyBlade craze has got me thinking about the nature of obsessive thinking. Our two boys, Edmund and Miles, have been completely swept up in the craze. I bought a BeyBlade for Miles yesterday, since Edmund has had one for a while. They're both totally into BeyBlading, but Miles is completely fixated. He is only four, but I'm still surprised by how he seems unable to talk or think of anything else.

So what's this got to do with hacking ? I noticed a parallel between Miles' behaviour, and my own, both now and when I was a nipper. Some external entity, whether it is BeyBlade (Miles), Rubik's Cube (younger me), or neat abstraction/refactoring crufty code/obscure bug (older me) compels one's attention ruthlessly. You know what it's like when you get locked into refactoring a piece of code or fixing a bug, and you just can't leave it alone until it's done ? So I'm hoping that Miles' obsessional behaviour with the BeyBlade is an indicator that he will have that powerful mental focus for more abstract tasks later on.

The downside to harnessing this obsessional mode of thought in paying work is that it can't be switched on or off at will. Sometimes I'll find myself with a deadline looming, getting sidetracked into a bit of refactoring that will eliminate crufty code and leave me with a cleaner structure. And I just can't stop myself.

I could go on to speculate about ADD, ADHD, autism and a putative gender gap for this phenomenon. But I won't. I'll put it down as yet another item to research at some distant point in the future when I've got some spare time...