Interests:

“In the course of personality development, interests play a twofold role in self-formation: on the one hand, their direction determines the choice of areas of life in which knowledge and skills are acquired to a special degree; on the other, they help the young person gradually to define his own nature. This process begins with children’s games and continues in adults’ hobbies. Both serve to expand one’s sphere of life; the latter become all the more important as the professional work of many people is confined to relatively narrow domains of competence and, within these, to routine activities. Mere interest in a thing does not yet impose obligation; it therefore allows one to try out one’s own individuality, initially difficult to grasp conceptually, in opportunities for activity. In this process one learns not only something about the world, but also something about oneself … To the extent that personality expresses itself in the mirror of the world it beholds, interests contain a key to it. The question of the distinctiveness of one’s own nature often begins with surprise at the direction of one’s own interests.”

Psychology — Fischer Lexicon, 1957