A friend of mine made a remark that many interesting things are not important and many important things are not interesting. He gave the examples of concurrent street lights as being interesting (unimportant) and health care as being important (uninteresting).
I thought I would list a few things I find interesting and/or important.
Interesting: there are very few orange colored cars, looking at the weave of my bed clothes when I wake up in the morning, modern cosmology and particle physics, subtle human conversation, the clothes people choose to wear, hair styles, mannerisms of professors while they teach, the way people walk (it seems to be very distinctive), the sound structure of sneezing (my sister thinks family members have similar sneezes), Seinfeld-like TV shows, stylish electronic gear (e.g. ipod), the physics of ice skating and other sports, banana slugs, the texture of leaves, music that shifts from major to minor keys suddently, non-native English (I especially like the lilting tone of Italian accents)
Important: much of politics, personal finance, diversity issues (e.g. women in science), poverty, health care, how to educate people, funding in science, voting, discrimination, being a good leader (e.g. delegating tasks), being on time, how to be a good person in society (I mean the nitty gritty details), cleaning my room, global warming, ergonomic design
Interesting and important: the intricate structure of snowflakes (important in how ice forms), surface tension of water (especially on my hi-tech Gore-Tex jacket), Battlestar Galactica - a great combination of entertaining action and thoughtful commentary on society, the thought processes of organization, personal and social psychology (e.g. family interactions, group dynamics), parts of condensed matter physics, applied physics, biology and chemistry (which tend to be more applied than fundamental physics), neuroscience, photography and art that documents our history, practical philosophy (not the modern stuff), literature and art that gives insight into how we should live our lives, raising children, artificial intelligence, ecology
Obviously these lists are very subjective. I try to work on things that are both interesting and important and try to keep tabs on the solely interesting and solely important things in my off time. I roughly define "interesting but not important" as seemingly trivial observations we make in everyday life and "important but not interesting" as either complex, abstract issues that give me a headache or practical drudgery.
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