“Never be frightened at your own faint-heartedness in attaining love. Don’t be too frightened even at your evil actions. I am sorry I can say nothing more consoling to you, for love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all. Men will even give their lives if only the ordeal does not last long but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as though on the stage. But active love is labor and fortitude.”(Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
Man has this malady of being passionate in theory. Dreaming passionately but living in complacency and listlessness. In me this takes a form where I quite often prefer anticipation of something more then that something itself. I get excited to see a movie and that anticipation is much more satisfying then actually watching said movie. This is why I prefer to cook a meal on a date rather then going out to eat, or why the first kiss is so much better then the rest especially when said kiss is illicit in nature.
Our idea of passion is slightly flawed in that passion alone cannot sustain itself. Passion becomes impatient and burns out quickly. The euphoric preoccupation that comes with passion will over time, succumb to a sense of familiarity and boredom. How can we expect to sustain a job, a relationship or a goal on passion? Certainly there can remain enjoyment but it becomes commonplace, normal and expected.
Sometime we may have to learn that to really pursue a passion that we will also have to toil thru times of drudgery and despondency. Times when passion has momentarily fled and being able to say I want this even without the rush of rainbows brought on by passion.
Newfoundlanders have got my fucking RESPECT
5 years ago
I disagree. I think that passion is not temporary like you've implied here. I believe that passion is what is underneath the dream. Passion, in my eyes is the thing that makes you go "oooooo! Yes! I really want that!" When you picture the end result. Passion is what drives you even though it's hard or tedious or painful. Passion is what is underneath it all, shining through so that you or I, or who ever, does not give up or give out part way through and decide that it's not worth it anymore.
ReplyDeleteOddly enough I expected you to disagree. The way I see it is that passion is a tool used to spark effort and incite change. It is good, it is transformative, it is essential. What it is not is sustaining.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe what drives peoples lives can be called passion. That belongs to something less fickle, something deeper. It belongs to something in our core, some guiding idea of what life is, what beauty is, and what is worth pursuing. This is purpose and this will help us thru when passion has stumbled.
Passion can implant or supplant purpose but cannot replace it.
Well this is a stupid argument. We are arguing definitions. You are saying the same thing as I am, except you don't call 'passion' what I call passion. Arguing definitions is kinda pointless.
ReplyDeleteArguing definitions is not fun but occasionally useful and essential. This argument served it's purposes for we started out in disagreement, but now we agree, though not necessarily happily.
ReplyDelete