How A Field of Coconuts Can Lead to Bliss

You know how I told you how to use a blog reader to focus on your goal? How finding blogs on topics related to your interests can help you stay motivated and inspired?

Think of this post as the corollary to that one. What I'd like you to do is try to find a blog or site that is mostly outside your realm of general interest, but that you find fascinating anyway. For me, the importance of going beyond your familiar topics was made abundantly clear yesterday when I stumbled upon (literally--I have no idea how I got there) the Agriculture Biodiversity Weblog, where I read a post about a genebank coconut field that had suffered quite a bit of damage thanks to a surprising number of lightning strikes.

You might be thinking BO-RING, but what finding this blog did for me was to remind me of my interest in science, food and geosocial issues like where food comes from and who eats it and how it is harvested. What I didn't realize that there was something that connected all those interests: agricultural biodiversity.

Then I found another blog that I particularly liked, though for more aesthetic reasons: the Human Flower Project, self described as an effort that's interested in "how people live through flowers."

What I love, beyond the horizon-enlarging nature of going beyond your same-ol' same-ol', is how energizing discovering other people's passions can be. Witnessing the fervor for biodiversity or Afghan flower arranging is a brilliant reminder of how passions enliven the world, how they save the world. And though you may not care for flowers or coconuts, someone out there does, leaving you to pursue what it is you are passionate about. Then, if you're really lucky and a generous soul, you can share your passion and teach others about how it fits in to this crazy world we live in.

So, go! Take an Internet voyage, and don't return until you find your Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog.

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