115 lines
5.4 KiB
Plaintext
115 lines
5.4 KiB
Plaintext
From slcpi!govt.shearson.com!mjohnsto@uunet.UU.NET Mon Jan 7 17:30:06 1991
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To: wordy@Corp
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Subject: chapter-55
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TIDAL PASSION
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by Steven K. Roberts
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Soquel, CA
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Mayday, 1990
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I talk often in these pages of passion. It's a driving theme of nomadness, of
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learning, of life in general -- it's the crystallization of dreams, the lust
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for evolution, the very antithesis of comfort. Without passion, life is spent
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waiting . . . waiting for someone else to make it all seem worthwhile.
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With it, growth is a way of life.
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Passion is not a notion, or a psychological abstraction. It often appears for
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a while in association with sex, but that's not what it's all about either.
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Passion is raw and all-consuming, and can't be replaced with religion, New Age
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interpretations of experience, academic compartmentalizations of the universe,
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a romp up the career ladder, or copping an attitude. It's intense, almost
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violent; it renders everything else in life unimportant while driving you on a
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quest of personally epic proportion.
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Something like that is not to be taken lightly, especially if you once had it
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and now sense it slipping away.
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The problem is that this whole culture discourages passion -- though not
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overtly, of course. We're politely encouraged to excel, to invent, to make
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something of ourselves. But the people who really do so have had to struggle
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past the boundaries of a society that offers up numbing entertainment, reduces
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education to the level of homogenization, discourages risk in its corporate
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world, applauds conformity, treats the exceptional as aberrations, and rewards
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the RsuccessfulS with that spectacularly sanitized mediocrity known as suburban
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bliss.
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There's an abrupt boundary between the haves and the have nots, as far as
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passion is concerned. You can't just dabble in passion -- it's all or nothing.
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Suddenly finding it makes you resent Christians for appropriating that
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otherwise delightful term Rborn againS; losing it makes you feel dead (and in
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some tragic cases, even take steps to make it so).
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No, there's no such thing as a passion dilettante. Your life is either driven
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by a grand, magnificent, all-encompassing design . . . or it isn't.
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What is possible, unfortunately, is to live passionately for a few years then
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suffer through the agonizing process of watching it slip away --Jwithout even
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knowing whether it's recoverable. It must be a bit like Parkinson's . . . the
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mind goes, but slowly enough that you witness your own dissolution and
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understand perfectly well what it means.
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* * *
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What I'm assuming, however, is that passion can be viewed as a tidal, and thus
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cyclic, phenomenon. It has been in my life, certainly, with every ebb a slow
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tragedy and every flow an exuberant celebration of new growth. The question
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is, how can one short-circuit this process and keep passion alive? Could we
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survive nonstop passion, day in and day out? Is endless passion even possible?
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If you see it slipping, can you snatch it back?
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One way, I think, is with landmarks. For me, it's a strange mix of favorite
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road music, an amusing juxtaposition of design concepts, fantasies of
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prototypical encounters Out There, and a few freeze- frame images of intense
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romance or adventure etched like lightning flashes on my brain.
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Another way to hang on to it is by spending time with passionate people --
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other mad, driven souls who brave the chortlings of the complacent and fear not
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the spectre of bankruptcy. It's powerfully reinforcing stuff, and when you
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forget your own passion, a spark from someone else's can reignite the blaze.
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Now let's enumerate methods that don't work:
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>> Commiserating with dispassionate friends (did you know that The Random
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House Dictionary defines dispassionate as Rfree from or unaffected by passion
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or biasS as if passion were a disease and somehow comparable to bias?)
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>> Making lists of things to do, especially if they represent the
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intellectualization of something about which you were once passionate.
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>> Perennially reshuffling your workspace, filing systems, business structure,
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software choices, circle of friends, or choice of town -- all in the name of
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correcting problems that are interfering with your pursuit of the Big Dream.
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>> Waiting for someone else to come along and solve your problems, or, if
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you're wealthy, attempting to subcontract your quest.
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>> Praying, drinking, getting stoned, swilling coffee, playing Crystal Quest,
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stroking crystals, or otherwise engaging in any numbing ritual that by direct
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effect or superstition is somehow involved with soothing your psyche or warding
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off danger. (Not that all these things are necessarily bad, mind you, they
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just don't have anything to do with passion . . . even though some of them feel
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pretty good. Why, one day on a coffee buzz I broke 1.8 million in Crystal
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Quest and celebrated with a drink.)
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Knowing what might work and what definitely doesn't is useful, but the most
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important thing is recognizing when your passion is slipping -- and stopping it
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before it's too late. The trappings and rewards of past brilliance echo
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sweetly with the magic of days gone by, and it's blissful to sail on remembered
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waves if you ignore the fact that you're not on a boat anymore.
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Remember why you are. Life is only once, and slips by so smoothly that you can
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get away with coasting through a whole career and still look pretty good. Find
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what you really want. Grasp it with unshakable passion and focused desire.
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Everything else is secondary.
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-- Steve
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