Researching can be fun

What is it with research? High school and college taught me that research is boring and time consuming. I hated it. I actively put it off when it came to doing papers and projects. Can't use Wikipedia. I'm dating myself a bit, but for several of those projects, it was hard copies of books only.

And yet, here I sit, having researched all last night and all day today. And I'm freakin' stoked! It has to be the subject matter. I suppose watching mini-documentaries on the demonic creatures of the Torah and the Gospel of Judas are more interesting to me than the Industrial Revolution. Although, to be fair, for my Wolves and Wild Roses short story I did a fair amount of research on Theodore Roosevelt and one of his Rough Riders.

I guess it's just motivation. I had better things to do in high school than read up about the 3/4 Compromise, but as a writer plying his craft, I'm nuts about how good ol' T.R. responded to accusations of being a drunkard. And, let's face it, some of the stuff I'm researching, like that idea that ancient Jewish sects revered God as a being with a wife named Ashara, are just freakin' interesting. It's stuff I would never have learned in school. Nothing my leaders or mentors would have ever brought up. And it's certainly not stuff that pops up frequently on television.

Freedom to learn as you will, I think, is an amazing motivator to search out new knowledge. I think Eddie Izzard actually did a bit on that. He hated school, but can't get enough of documentaries as an adult. 

Has this happened to any of you? Anyone out there just love digging into knew and often pointless information now that there's no pressure?

​DFTBA