In a recent thread, I was kinda yanking Maeglin’s chain about being a little too into JRR Tolkein. In yet another, I was asking why someone would enjoy Big Game safari hunting. In that thread, sailor said he did not believe they could explain it anymore than he could explain his love for sailing. Or you will step into someone’s home and find out that they collect thimbles, or cereal boxes, or ceramic representations of black people eating watermelon (true example from when I was young).
Now I don’t know that I have any great passions. I really love gardening, and I know a lot about plants compared to a non-gardener, but I know many many more people who work harder at it and know far more about it than I. And I used to love the ACT of fighting, but have recently had to stop due to some injuries. Tho I miss it, I’ll get over it. And even when I was doing it, I wasn’t all hung up on minute intricacies and history and stuff. And I don’t collect anything (other than dust.)
So I’m kinda asking two questions. First, what makes some people develop really passionate attractions to a particular hobby, interest, or pastime. Second, how does a person arrive at their choice? Why collect china pigs and not penguins?
That’s how a friend described her passion about her job to me. If you’re willing to do it on your weekends, and if it can get you up out of bed on a rainy Monday, then you probably feel passionately about it. I don’t collect stuff, unless cat hair counts. But I have lots of passion…
Me, I’ve known since I was a kid that I loved music. I guess I’m lucky. I developed my passion because my family was supportive; still are, in fact.
And why music? I guess because it was all around me, and I had a modicum of talent to start with.
Travel is my passion. I feel so alive when I’m discovering new cultures, visiting new places, tasting new foods,… All of my senses become truly alive. It makes me feel passionate about life. I can be in Europe, Asia, the U.S., … If it’s a new place, I really enjoy my own personal discoveries. I collect a few souvenirs and take many photos. But I mostly collect wonderful memories. I can close my eyes and find myself back in the Swiss Alps, etc.
Music is my big passion, but I didn’t really get hooked until I started playing the drums. I started off taking piano lessons from the neighborhood teacher. It never really took. Then in the 5th grade my sister suggested I play baritone horn since I would get all the good parts. I did that for two years and was pretty good at it, so that at least kept me interested.
Then some friends of mine got me started playing drums and that was the ticket. Then came playing in a rock band and that really lit the fire. I did the all-state band thing in high school but sort of burned out on the pressure audition-for-every-damn-thing classical track.
In college I had one foot in the classical realm, playing in the university symphony and opera pit orchestras and the other foot in the rock realm playing tripped out jams until the sun came up. Later I started playing guitar and bass and writing songs and composing - basically doing whatever interested me at the time. As you might imagine this has led to a rather dissipated musical existence and I never really had the focus and drive it takes to be a real full-time pro musician. I know people that have it and I don’t have it.
Nevertheless it’s my passion to this day despite the disappointments. And the good news is since I’ve made so much money by not being a professional musician, I’ve been able to build that little house in the hills with a little studio I’ve always wanted so I can spread out finally (my current studio being an electronic one in a dressing alcove in my studio apartment in NYC).
I have other passions like travelling to the southwest and bicycling but they wax and wane. Music is always there burning away whether I want it to or not.
One day, when I was quite young, I heard a voice, and it said to me " You must save France from Jerry Lewis." And I knew that it was my des-
My obsession with stories pre-dates my earliest memories. Once I was old enough to write, about age five or so, I began to realize that I could create stories just like the ones I read. Really just like, one of the stories I wrote when I was in 1st grade is eerily similar to a new-ish kids book (The Cow Who Said Oink) but I’m not bitter or anything. When I got older I decided that I could write stories that were better than some of the ones I read, and I still believe it. I try to write something every day, whether it be part of a story, a journal entry, or a section of a serial fan-fic; just something to sate the urge to use words. Maybe the answer to your question is that I’ve never let go of my childish devotion to stories, or that it’s just been a part of me most of my life…
I do not think anyone is destined to just one passion, rather I think people have an inclination for certain general types of things and a personality that makes them passionate or not. Then it is a matter of chance and exposure to things. When you are exposed to something that fits with your inclination and if you are passionate about things in general, then you develop a passion for that thing in particular.
As a child I was exposed to sailing and I have continued to have an interest in sailing all my life. For long periods I did not sail but the interest was there. The more you know about something, the more you enjoy it but you have to get over the dry initial introduction. This is much more easily done as a kid.
I am an extremely curious person and I am often amazed to see how little curiosity most people have. People who do not have a passion for something are the least interesting to me.
I found your comments intersting sailor (tho I hope you don’t mind if I choose not to consider the final sentence directed at me!;))
When I find about someone’s passion, I often wonder, what would they be passionate about if they had not been exposed to that? And a real obvious aspect of this is collectors. It’s all fine and good for rjung to intone “the passion chooses you.” Well, if that’s the case, I’d just as soon be chosen by fossils than by snoopy products.
I also think of this with - shall I say - unconventional or unusual passions. When you hear about someone from Florida who is deeply involved in curling or somesuch. I don’t stay awake thinking about it, but I do occasionally wonder how such a person became exposed to this activity in a manner that stirred their passion.
Those Snoopy collectors getting rich on eBay are laughing at you, I hear.
And yeah, it’s pithy, but I do think you don’t really have a say over what you get passionate about. The trend comes up, tickles that hidden cortex of your brain, and suddenly your life is thrown topsy-turvey because you’ve found a new activity that you just can’t do without.
This really interests me, because I don’t have a passion, and I would like to. Maybe what sailor said makes the most sense; I’m not a passionate person in any area of my life. I’m very much a balanced, cautious person, and maybe this is why, even though I have a ton of interests, I have no particular passion. Except, maybe, wasting time on the SDMB. That I can do for hours on end, daily.
I’m going to have to go with rjung here as well. Before you discover your “passion,” you are an normal human being. Then you are exposed to it, and the next day when you wake up, you find that you are in fact a giant bug. This is less than insightful, to be sure. But I don’t think there are a whole lot of good ways to explain personal change of so great a magnitude.
