The Case for Temporary Obsessions

Editorial Assistant Vanessa Bland defends Mr Toad and investigates how abandoned passions aren’t necessarily failures

Have you ever watched the 1984 stop-motion animated tv series of Wind in the Willows? I love revisiting classics and started binge-watching this one recently with my husband. Yes, it’s a children's show, but after checking the doom

sday clock and seeing that it’s at 89 seconds to midnight, I needed to soothe my nerves. The series is sweet, earnest, and very British. I love it. After watching season one, my husband casually dropped a bomb on me. He claimed that Mr Toad reminded him of me. 

For those unfamiliar with Mr Toad, he is a wealthy amphibian with a fatal flaw: he becomes wildly enthusiastic about a new passion, throws himself into it headfirst, announces it loudly to everyone within earshot, and then—just as abruptly— abandons it in favour of something else. One moment it’s boating, the next it’s motorcars, then horses, then something even more impractical. His confidence never wavers. Only the object of his devotion does.

I turned to my husband with narrowed eyes, ready to argue. Then I started mentally counting. Over the last decade or so, I have studied Egyptian hieroglyphs. I completed a postgraduate diploma in philosophy. I started making jewellery, then started selling jewellery. I studied astrology, then started doing astrology charts for everyone I knew. I became deeply involved in genealogy, started a genealogy business, and launched a genealogy YouTube channel. I began writing a novel. I enrolled in a Master's of Creative Writing.

This is not including the long list of things I have seriously discussed, researched, or briefly convinced myself would change my life entirely. Learning Italian. Share trading. Ceramics. Painting. Soap making. Interior design. Selling plant cuttings. Running a hobby farm. Becoming, at various points, a very specific and aspirational version of myself.

With this in mind, my husband’s case was compelling.

The thing is, each of these phases was undertaken with complete sincerity. Philosophy wasn’t a dalliance; it was going to help me understand life’s mysteries. Jewellery making came with tools, materials, branding ideas, and an alarming amount of confidence. Astrology arrived not as a guilty pleasure, but as something I approached academically, methodically. Genealogy took over my brain entirely, becoming both a business and a public-facing project, complete with scripts, research plans, and thumbnail ideas.

Each niche was a full immersion. Books were bought, courses were started. Futures were imagined.

And then, quietly, interest waned. Not with failure exactly, just with a gentle recognition that whatever I had been chasing had, for the moment, been caught.

There’s a societal suspicion around this kind of behaviour. We admire depth, commitment, and specialisation. We like the idea of a thing: one calling, one passion, one clearly defined lane. It’s how successful people operate, isn’t it?

Jumping between interests can look like indecision, flakiness, or a clinical diagnosis. It’s tempting to frame these abandoned niches as evidence of failure.

But what if they weren’t failures at all?

In ecology, a niche isn’t about permanence. It’s about fit. It’s the specific set of conditions that allows an organism to thrive. However, when conditions change, adaptation follows. Movement isn’t weakness; it’s survival.

Seen this way, my various passions weren’t mistakes. They were environments I inhabited fully, learned from, and eventually outgrew. Each one left residue behind— skills, habits, ways of thinking. Philosophy sharpened my reasoning. Business ventures taught me structure and risk. Genealogy honed my research instincts. Writing became the place where all of it could coexist.

Perhaps my niche isn’t a subject at all, but a mode of engagement. Enthusiasm. Curiosity. The willingness to commit completely, even temporarily.

By the end of season two, Mr Toad was once again declaring himself an expert in something he had only just discovered. I felt a strange fondness for him. Yes, he’s ridiculous. Yes, he’s impulsive. But he is also wholehearted. When he loves something, he loves it without irony or restraint.

I don’t know what my next craze will be. I suspect my husband is already bracing himself. But if this makes me Toad-like, I’m content with that. I’d rather be wildly interested than narrowly bored. If that makes me a jack of all niches, so be it.

by Vanessa Bland