On the Dying Art of Passion
How to lead with what’s real.
I understand why the world we live in has discouraged authentic passion, and I am simultaneously deeply disappointed that so many of us have succumbed to our comfort zones. I can’t blame anyone for wanting to numb themselves or live in a state of perpetual distraction, because, truly, life is really hard. But because I know that to be true, I can also promise that there is something on the other side of that discomfort, something that makes the tribulations of life a little more bearable.
The first contributing factor of the passion apocalypse that I have observed among my peers is fear paralysis—the inability to acknowledge our fear without letting it control us. We’re either scared to be perceived outside of the specific identity that we feel comfortable with, or we’re scared to be perceived at all because perception feels like judgement and judgement feels dangerous. We’re scared to suck at something we’ve never tried, but we’re even more scared to be perceived while sucking at something we’ve never tried. Scared to care. Scared to be rejected. Scared to be vulnerable. Scared to dedicate yourself to something other than media consumption. Scared of devotion. Scared to make a mistake—or worse, to be seen making a mistake.
I don’t really care if somebody makes a grammatical error. This essay is probably riddled with them. God forbid we sing a note off-key or dance off-beat, two medicinal activities that have been utilized by our ancestors to heal the nervous system and clear stagnant energy from the body for centuries. We are scared of the very things that make us human.
Much of this fear can be accredited to an over fixation on the “self”. I carried social anxiety for years until I noticed that nobody was perceiving me as much as I thought they might be because they’re too busy thinking about themselves. Realizing that we are collectively becoming more and more narcissistic by the second was freeing: I could do whatever I wanted and nobody really cared unless it impacted their perception of themselves. Even in times where I accidentally challenged a belief someone had through my own self expression, I was able to view it through the lens of narcissism on the other party’s end, so I couldn’t take it personal. Your perception of me is rooted in your perception of yourself. No one cares until their ego does, and once I understood that, the fear got quieter.
Fear of perception is both valid and reinforced through social norms and expectations. People are picked apart constantly for having the audacity to show up imperfectly, and though this may have always been true, we now have instant access to billions of people’s opinions (7.21 billion people which is 90% of the world’s population have smartphones, I’d throw in a citation for this stat but you can Google it) and it is easier than ever to be hypercritical of each other and of ourselves. It is also currently much easier to numb and distract ourselves than to push past discomfort. I don’t blame anyone whose comfort zone became home. This isn’t to discredit or invalidate anyone’s fears because they are understandable and I have them too. But the decline in individuals audacious enough to challenge their fears and do the thing anyway is having a direct impact on the evolution of culture and consciousness, and even more than that, on our freedom.
Many of us are still stuck in the frequency of fear, but what happens once you push past that discomfort? You just unlocked a new level: reclaiming your focus. Distraction may be one of the biggest threats to passion, art, and innovation right now. When everything is competing for your attention, your attention becomes currency. It is your biggest asset, and collectively, our attention spans will be the most vital tool we have in the revolution. Anything worth having in life takes focus, devotion, and long-term commitment, which sounds a lot less exciting and accessible than a quick dopamine spike, though numbing through your choice of vice only feels freeing until you try to stop.
As an unmedicated neurodivergent and anxious person, it would be really easy to succumb to my vices, and I do. But the one thing I have in my arsenal, that we all have (perhaps at varying degrees) is passion. The passion that I lead with is also what I run off of. Everything I do is powered by passion. The way I love, the way I treat the world around me, what I create, my curiosity, the things I share are all powered simply by my endless pool of undying devotion to the planet I live on and to the human experience for the short amount of time that I am experiencing it. It’s an integral part of me that will never die, though there have been many times it probably should have.
But passion is what breeds newness. Passion is what creates and manifests. It’s what’s at the forefront of revolution. It is raw, life-force energy that connects soul to action and is the driver to collective transformation. Paired with attention, authentic passion can create anything.
Passion is resistance in motion. Capitalism is fueled off of disconnection, apathy, survival mode, distraction, and overconsumption, so living passionately is a radical act. Refusing to be numb is a radical act. Rejecting a quick hit of dopamine in pursuit of long term freedom is a radical act. When you honor your joy, your inner fire, your intuition, your visions, your focus, you become harder to control. Passion fuels movements, authentic art, and long-term change. It is the breath of liberation.
People’s thoughts about you aren’t real. They’re not tangible and you can’t even hear them. The concept of sucking at the thing you want to try isn’t real. The standards are arbitrary anyway, and they were only created to be broken. What’s real is your soul. What’s real is your desire to create. What’s real are your ideas, which have their own consciousness and have chosen you as a host to actualize them. What’s real is your voice. What’s real is your passion. Lead with what’s real.
With presence, not possession, with the discipline of staying, with the intimacy of attention, with curiosity, again and again, in the slow art of becoming and the courage of continuation.
H.
How I love and relate to this!