there’s nothing heroic about burnout. there’s nothing heroic about not sleeping, or forgetting to eat because you’re so focused on wanting to help someone.
The only reason why vigilance over yourself would fail is that passion does not always approach in its obvious form, but often appears to be so comely that you think it is something good, not guessing it is a passion. When anger erupts, for example, it is evident to everyone that this is a passion. However, anger is not always in its obvious form; it often appears as righteous indignation. Every passion has a similar habit of dressing itself up and posing as something comely. You are virtuous and may fall for this bait quite easily. Watch out! One must renounce all that is passionate in its most insignificant forms and subtlest features. Observe, accordingly, and do not allow anything inside.
Sometimes you have to love yourself enough to legit force yourself to do things you enjoy. I’ve struggled with this for so long; waking up and feeling no inspiration to pursue what I love. Sometimes I wake up and don’t even know how to want what it is that I love. What comes from that is an extreme suction of events, where life becomes still and confusing. I guess the whole lesson is to always pursue talents when we have them, no matter what’s happening in the external. Without pursuing and using them we can often feel ourselves waking up with forgetfulness in regards to how to make them shine in the world.
Being smart and good at thinking is something people are envious of but what they don’t realize is that the world was not made for people like that.
Being smart means being lonely. It means being able to create an amazing world inside your head and being forced to stay there.
It means being able to discuss extremely interesting topics but having nobody to do it with or doing it so rarely cause people get bored of you easily as you’re not “fun”.
It means having passions and always wondering if you’re good enough as you can always learn more and be better. It means the awareness of how much you still don’t know.
And it means people always saying that they are not familiar with the topic or never thought of it so they have nothing to say to you.
It means compensating with fictional characters cause there is nobody in your life except for them.
Being smart and good at thinking means starting a story and realizing nobody is listening because nobody cares or wants to understand so you slowly fade away and they don’t even notice you’re not talking anymore. Except it’s not a moment but your whole life.
The daytime soap Passions, noted as the weirdest and most far-out of all of them, had a regular character named Precious, an orangutan who was a fully licensed caregiver for an elderly person. Her most notable subplots are ones where she went to prison (complete with an orange jumpsuit) and had unrequited love for the hunky Luis. She had dream sequences where she ballroom danced with him while wearing glamorous jewelry.
The producers of Passions tried to put the animal actor who played Precious in the running for a daytime Emmy. I really admire the cojones of that move, but the Daytime Emmys had this statement:
Our ruling is based on the belief that the Academy must draw a line of distinction between animal characters that aren’t capable of speaking parts and human actors whose personal interpretation in character portrayal creates nuance and audience engagement that uniquely qualifies those performers for consideration of television’s highest honor.
I’ve been going back and forth in my head for a couple of weeks now about this. I’ve been applying for a bunch of jobs and I’ve been tossing back and forth between applying for only what I’m passionate about or applying for jobs that I’d simply be good at.
Whenever I mention passion to my much-older cousin, she says it’s dangerous to be fixated on mixing your career with passion. Passion implies forever, and our careers don’t necessarily need to be forever. Especially nowadays when people have several different careers during their lifetimes.
I want to find something I’m passionate about doing because whenever I meet people who are passionate about what they do, I feel a tinge of jealousy - I mean, obviously, right? It was always ingrained in me growing up that I should do what I love and what I’m passionate about, but is that not really the way it is? Just because a very small percentage of the population has managed to find a job they absolutely love, does that have to be what we all strive for? Because it’s almost as hard to find as finding your “soulmate.”
Why isn’t it good enough for all of us if we find a job that pays us so we can live our lives and pay the bills and take the occasional vacation? A job that we might happen to be good at, even though it might not be something we’re particularly passionate about doing?
So, at first I was limiting my job applications to only companies for which I could muster up some degree of passion. Then I realized that those jobs are super few and far between and maybe my cousin was right: just find a job with people that you like (or can at least tolerate), that pays you well, and that you’re good at and, live your life outside the office.
I went to school for theatre management and took an extra several-month course in commercial producing after graduation. I worked in theatre and the pay was lousy and the hours were even worse. I loved some of the shows I was working on, but even though I loved (and still love) theatre, I knew it wasn’t the end of the world if I didn’t work in the industry anymore. It was my passion and I could do it outside work.
Isn’t that generally what passions are anyways? Things you do in your free time? Yes, I’d love to teach yoga full-time, but that path is hard as fuck, and you have to hustle, and I don’t know if I’m cut out for that.
So, in the meantime, I’m going to try to teach (for $$ or volunteer) yoga on the side and then get a job that I’m good at. I’ll try my best not to work in an industry that I find revolting (again) and be content that maybe I’m not 100% passionate about what I do from 9 to 5 every day. My life outside of work is more important at the end of the day: friends, yoga, meditation, theatre, music.
And if you make your passion your day job, is it really your passion anymore? Just asking. For a friend.
stop shaming people for being passionate about the things that they love. stop mocking people for having unusual interests. like, honestly, i’m so tired of feeling embarrassed for being “too much”. if being too much means having deep interests that fill my life with romanticism and excitement, then let me be!!! i’d much rather listen to anyone ranting about their latest obsession with 16th century swords than have a boring ordinary conversation with those who shame passionate people
