The Principle Of Passion

I had a conversation the other night(actually we've had a few too many for me to handle lately) and the question was asked "What do you want from your life?" That's a pretty vague question, and what I want from life would take far too long to explain. But I thought about it carefully anyway for a very long time and came up with an explanation of what I truly wanted in my life without having to make the exhaustive list.And what I want, more than anything else in my life, is passion in the things I do. It isn't a matter of what it is that I want. I want the same as anyone else. But it is my dedication to them, that passion that makes all the work I do in them a reward beyond even my own expectations.
And while it can be said that people do a great many things in their lives; their job,their hobbies, their relationships, that is not the same as having a passion for doing them. There are people who can paint, and there are those who paint well but have no heart in it. It is those who inject passion into the things that they feel important that drive the very limits of what it is they have put their energies into. You have to WANT what it is you create, and passion is what changes a simple task into an art.
I have a very wide range of things that I have put passion into. If I were to go way back, and think about why I went to college, it was not to make a better life for myself. It was for the passion of Archaeology. Now most people could not conceive of spending an entire weekend stuck down in the stacks of old journals and musty museum curation labs looking at artifacts that were broken and useless when Christ was born. But to me, it was of no effort at all. It was work fueled with passion. And no amount of work it involved ever felt like it was too much for the satisfaction of knowing what I found. Passion is what separates simple toil from a labor of love.
To have passion is to do something you love to do above all else. What would you like to do if time was not restrictive, money not and issue and nothing to stop you from doing that? For some, it’s a question people are very afraid to not only ask, but answer because they might realize that horrible epiphany,“Why am I not doing this?” But for me, it is the passion that brings the meaning to the act. I KNOW why I am doing it.
For many years I worked as a helicopter crew chief. I was very good at my job and there isn't a single piece of an aircraft I couldn't identify, repair,or replace. But I didn't have the passion for doing it. I was destined for greater things. And it wasn't until I became a medic that my ability to do a job became as much an art as an occupation. It is being able to go far beyond the limits of most peoples comfort zones and get right down into it and have every single aspect of it under my control. It is grace under pressure.
One of the things that people do not understand is that passion for anything increases your success at it simply by your need to have in your life every component of the experience. No part is unimportant when passion fuels the desire to have it. It is for this that some people prefer to live in tenement buildings and paint or sit alone and write on street corners rather than be seen as successful in cubicle sipping latte's and considering on a daily basis whether jumping from the 17th floor wasn't a better idea. Because the desire to do what it is that you feel in your heart is what you put your energy into and the belief that there is nothing more important. That is passion.
I only mention this because I knew where the original question was going when she asked what it is in my life I wanted. Above anything else I want in my life, it is a love complete, and passion for love is something I would trade anything else for. Passion for love is the greatest of my desires. It is that feeling I get when every second of my day is consumed with the thoughts of another person. Not to the point of distraction, but to the point that it drives me through everything else in my life. It is the difference between distraction, and direction. Love may be a flame that burns in a heart, but it is the passion that puts the heat to the coals that makes the warmth of a relationship. It is the knowledge that there is nothing that will not be done to have the intensity of love any less than total. Everybody has something they love, and a few even say that they put effort into it, but it is the rare few who elevate their love so far past an aspect of the human condition so as to make it a form of art that makes it swell beyond normal definitions. It is divine intervention sent through the heart and the mind of the person who wants it, and it is the passion that makes simple love become the type of intimate relationship that becomes priceless.
Passion is a gift of the spirit combined with experience. When passion for another is found, it fills us with the power to live and love and communicate with unbridled enthusiasm. Passion at its purest starts when the full potential of a mind becomes undivided in its desire. It is cemented to a body willing to endure what it needs to achieve it, and then they work to breathe the spirit into what they see as worthy of the effort. Together, like a magnifying glass gathers light, it focuses and brings out, in both ourselves and that which we put it into, our most sacred values. It is passion that allows another person to see the true depth of their worth in another persons eyes. Passion is the mirror that reflects back the qualities of your own soul.
Passion enables us to overcome obstacles (real and perceived) and to see the world as a place of infinite potential. When you have passion, and passion for love in particular, every event, every dream, even every simple act, is a promise of what can be, what should be and what will be.
And passion has its own inertia too. It is a quality that increases in size and value. And most of all, passion is not intrinsic to the individual who started it. It is not only observable by someone else, it can be transferred. Most importantly, passion can not be imitated. There is no comparison between a person who loves with passion and a person who simply loves. It can not be faked. Almost anyone, with minimal intuitiveness, can notice it. It's much like walking down to a flea market and seeing two people who made the same two things. One who made it for the passion of doing it with money secondarily, and the one who made it for money regardless of its lack of passion. Yes, they are the same thing, but it is in the fine details and the dedication to its perfection that shows the difference. Passion is the scale for things that look alike. We can sense a lack of sincerity, authenticity and depth. And in doing so we automatically recognize the dryness of what it is to be without passion.
I believe that passion for what it is that you do and who you put it into determines the authenticity of an individual soul. It is one thing to say that you love what you have or make or believe, but it is passion that strips away the thin veneer that separates what is said or done by one person, and what really is inside another. The power of passion forces us to see others as who they are, who they are becoming and often,when it is not there, what they can never be.
Don't get me wrong. There are still a great many people who shy away from passion. Passion is a commitment to that which you desire, and many people run from the total pursuit of passion because they're afraid of being burned. Past relationships that ended in searing pain can cause a person to lose passion. Trusts and confidences that were betrayed often cause people to no longer look to the rewards of passion. The Utopian goals that suffocate under soulless logic, fractional or underdeveloped emotions, and overzealous egos. All of them contribute to the loss of passion in the world.
As a result, they have become afraid of taking the risks that come with living life to its fullest. Most people have touched the fringes of true passion, if only for the briefest moments, at the most unexpected junctures in their lives. They've glimpsed the edges of another world, the promise of hope they never imagined, and had themselves caressed with the comfort, the overwhelming sense of peace, of genuine affection.
Longer and longer, they stay away, though, opting instead for a more predictable existence. Rather than taking a leap of faith and immersing themselves in the deepest joys and motivations, they insist on hiding inside a safety bubble, a sanitary, lifeless, colorless world where nothing new ever happens and the only thing that one can rely on is that tomorrow will be the same as yesterday, and that today will be more of the same.
What I want?? More than anything else is PASSION!! Passion for the world, passion for people, passion for hope,passion for what it is we do in our jobs and the people we do them for, but most of all passion for love. And we have to trust in ourselves enough to be receptive to experiencing every second of every hour, of every day to its fullest for the things we are passionate for. Can you imagine how much more meaningful our roles as parents, as lovers,....as people, we would be if all of our thoughts and motivations, our total sense of desire to succeed was with passion?
And you wonder why it is that love would be what I put my deepest passion into?? Don't ask why I would put passion into it. Look at who I love and KNOW that what is there is deserving of passion.
I believe in the passion that I put into who I love. And it is the passion that I think she will see. Passion for the world, passion in other, but most importantly passion for her. That is the power of passion.
One of the greatest differences between us as people and the rest of the animals is our capacity to experience and respond to feelings. Tears of joy, the desire for happiness, affection, unrestrained intimacy, pride, zeal, conviction, true love, compassion -- these are not, CAN NOT be sins. Rather, they compliment another aspect of humanity. And that is the gift of free will. The real sadness is lacking the courage to express our convictions and dedication for the loves in your life. The belief that free will somehow, somewhere, was removed as a virtue and replaced as a sin. It should be a crime to bottle up the passion you once felt as a youth so that you'll fit into a controlled environment or association, or to find it only to be convinced of its worthlessness or triviality by someone else. In fact, the closest we can come to a physical hell is the unforgivable action of refusing to say what needs to be said, not gravitating toward what makes us joyful in our hearts or forcing ourselves to no longer feel what was intended to be felt. It is not the loss of passion. It is the refusal of passion. Passion shapes our existence, fuels the fires of inspiration and makes the heart and mind open to changes all around us. It is what gives purpose and value to intangible things. It is food for the soul, a spark that re illuminates our purpose and mission for being here. Passion is the driver to what it is to be human.
If there were one thing I held more important than anything else it would be passion. But passion for love above anything else.