I’m really looking for what may have been the driving motivation and reward. The focus is on your personal drive for the interest and what you gained from it.
We can’t have meaningful conversations if people are scared to be honest, so please be authentic, forthcoming, and respectful. Conversely, please respond to others with compassion so that users feel safe enough to be vulnerable.
My midwestern US schooling taught me almost nothing about African or diaspora history beyond the slave trade. When I learned that there was a whole big huge continent whose history I didn’t know, I was fascinated. Simultaneously, I was awakening to the systemic injustice that Afro-folks experience in the United States, and wanted to learn as much as I could about their background and context.