I love history because all history is bunk. The good guy always wins because the history of any battle or war is written by the victor. Kings and Politicians commission what is written about them. Richard the Lionheart, that great English icon, didn't even speak English. Finding out the truth is fun and the grist that makes your writing stand out. The truth is out there. I also like the occult because the word 'occult' simply means, secret or hidden so to investigate the occult is to discover what someone, maybe a priest or maybe even God, wants to keep hidden. So that's the Adam and Eve question. Whether to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge? Then, when you discover what is secret or hidden, whether it is some spiritual mystery or the truth about aliens or which politician is screwing who, be a writer because being a writer is more fun than being a pleb who simply believes the guff they see on television. Only a writer knows the truth even if that truth is fiction because they know that all truth is in fact, a fiction. 

I got as far as Australia serving in the Royal Navy and subsequently qualified as a railway welding engineer. I also know the right way to blow a safe, which is never like it is shown in film, but I won't tell you how I learned this.