Eating Life
Everyone loves passion. Romantic comedies and non-comedic romances flood the cinemas, Mills & Boon continues to grind out thousands of titles every year, Danielle Steele is a millionaire and so’s Hugh Hefner. People look up to that Apple bloke, Richard Branson and other business leaders; they try to emulate the passion as much as the person.
Being an IT geek who’s far too logical about life and understands machines much better than humans, passion is somewhat alien to me. It’s something I’ve always been intrigued by, since I find it lacking in myself.
Where do those people who seem to have a never-ending love of a particular subject get the energy for it? And the concentration? Don’t they ever get fed up? Don’t they sometimes just want to eat pizza and watch bad movies?
I mean, it’s one thing to enjoy a hobby, but quite another to enthuse about it all the time. Are they really that thrilled about their subject? Is it all fake? Is it psychological compensation for something missing in another part of their life (cf. Crazy Cat Ladies)?
Since I’m a bit of a geek myself, I can understand obsession. I did, after all, once spend 36 hours in EverQuest. But when it reaches the point of taking a year off work to play a video game, spending all your time and money building stuff out of Lego or picking up a pen and writing while you’re eating breakfast with your off-hand? That’s all pretty extreme.
So it intrigued me yesterday when, in a conversation with my muse, she said “tu bouffes la vie“. It was a compliment about what it’s like to live with me (and no, I don’t think it ‘s that great to live with me, before you ask).
“You eat life.”
Apparently, she sees me as someone who is passionate about life. Not about any particular thing, but the whole of life. Bird song. Work. Sunlight. Movies. The cat. Cooking a full English breakfast. Hoovering. Whatever it is, she tells me, I throw myself into it and exude optimism and fun.
I think she has a distorted view. On the other hand, wouldn’t it be great if I found out, after all these years of believing I have no passion, that life itself is the thing I love most?
How are we supposed to know if we’re passionate about something? Where’s the border that we cross from normal to obsessive? Is there passport control? Can I bring luggage or just a carry-on bag?
I’d love to know what you think.
Au contraire, Monsieur Homard…
Are you not overcome with passion for written communication? Indeed, can you flatly deny (or deny flatly, which no doubt shall inflame your infinitvely split fervent) being for our benefit and that of your fortunate clientele, enthused interlocutor extraordinaire?
If it involves a menu of meaningful words then I would say you are certainly a man of appetites, but I take your point.
I fear this may be an old chestnut wedged in the oesophagus; excuse me while I perform the Heimlich Maneuver on definitions.
‘Passionate’ in vocational context – particularly espoused in CV’s, interview rooms and networking groups – tends to invoke instant recoil in my lexicon. Once uttered by some hapless drone, I require the same sort of router reset ‘switch off and unplug for sixty seconds’ maintenance to snap me out of permanent damage from mind’s eye exposure to a stock image of Ricky Gervais in The Office.
Yet, the original meaning of passion (passio) is “suffering”. Unceasing public displays of passion is most likely a breakdown waiting to happen, dahling [wipes brow, head drops, angst written across the air with wave of limp wrist].
Interesting to ponder, as you say, the juncture at which enthusiasm begats motivational focus in order to transmute past obsession and on into zealot territory.
I occasionally see, and often pass, signposts. Whilst straining back over my shoulder, as if that contortion aids twenty:twenty hindsight – glimpsing nothing but galvanised poles atop which the festooned rusting metal sheet merely cackles at my impending mishap farther up this road oft travelled – onward I trundle, the tortured seeker of what it is I am here for, the ‘why’ of my experience, the ‘how’ to extricate myself from cyclical err.
Maybe my yearning for that kind of passion stems from similar right brain abuse hurled at my indifferrent left brain, to yours Spike. How do we know when we’re passionate? Simply, feelings in the moment I guess. Without trying to rationalise them, synthesise them or integrate them. Remember a world when gay abandon didn’t instantly attract connotation or malicious sneer? Skepticism has a place, as does discernment. Moderation and balance are almost always necessary. But by giving ourselves permission to be ourselves, to stop beating ourselves up in trying to please others, maybe that is key to allowing life to excite us. Nurturing our inner child or some such stuff, I think they call it. Most of us had trauma or emotional shock visited upon us at some stage of our formative years. Well, your muse knows more about this than I do, but my drift is there to be caught…
I think I talked myself into fetching my passport. Where’s that holdall with the sand still in the bottom of it? Oh and tupperware. Packed lunch….
Really good to have you back Spike.
When will I ever learn? Two typos and two grammatical. Aargh. Andy was right. Compose in M$ Word or preferred alternative first, go to spellcheck, outsource to freelance copywriter, next, pass to the editor, spellcheck again, THEN post on Spike’s blog. Well, they do say ‘amateur’ means ‘for the love of it’….