wheelwright Posted February 22, 2011 Posted February 22, 2011 Just after musing on WF's thread, I was wondering how important passion is in making life choices? Have you made choices base on passion for a person or activity? Or do you have more 'sensible' means of choosing which path to take?
carhill Posted February 22, 2011 Posted February 22, 2011 Passion is a feeling. It's a motivator. It can be directed by one's will. As an example, my passion for a woman many years ago motivated me to leave my job behind and start my own business. Nothing came of the woman, but the feelings motivated me in a way I might not have been otherwise. Appropriate to this forum, she was married (to someone else).
Author wheelwright Posted February 22, 2011 Author Posted February 22, 2011 Passion is a feeling. It's a motivator. It can be directed by one's will. As an example, my passion for a woman many years ago motivated me to leave my job behind and start my own business. Nothing came of the woman, but the feelings motivated me in a way I might not have been otherwise. Appropriate to this forum, she was married (to someone else). Yes you state it well - the relationship between passion and will. I suppose I am wondering about the borderline between being ruled by ones passions or being positively inspired and perhaps steered by them. I think this is the question many WSs are asking - and one reason why so many As end as we know they do. And at this point of course, we must question the quality of the passion. If it is for chocolate or genocide, there may be a fault in the system. It may even be that your main passion is for a quiet life.
carhill Posted February 22, 2011 Posted February 22, 2011 Let's say I have a passion for music. I see it in my mind. It tugs at me constantly. I spend hours, days, weeks on end putting that music into the world, eschewing my responsibilities of living. Bills go unpaid; my shower never gets wet. I'm focused. Would you say my passion is ruling me and, if so, in a positive way? Our psychologist had an interesting description about behavioral health. He said if a behavior inhibits the formation of healthy interpersonal relationships, then it bears scrutiny. Such relationships aren't limited to romantic ones. Does the expression of my passion inhibit such a formation? I'll use another anecdotal example showing the unhealthy aspects of passion ruling ones behavior.... my passion for said woman inhibited my ability to form other healthy romantic interpersonal relationships. This was most poignantly exemplified when unknown to myself, I began dating and had a relationship with the mother of one of her daughter's friends. Imagine the look on my face when she showed up at my then GF's door one day. Imagine what went through my GF's mind when she saw my face. That one moment probably failed the relationship, even though it went on for a few more months. My passion ruled me, to the detriment of a relationship. That was probably the point when I should have sought therapy. With said therapy, plus a destroyed marriage (yup, that passion again), I now live a quiet life. Passion has taken on a different dimension; a different texture. Life goes on.
BeachBetty Posted February 22, 2011 Posted February 22, 2011 I am not sensible at all. I am passionate. And I make decisions based on my passion. I am not the person who does the same thing, day after day. Passion is what makes us different than any other species on this earth. And I revel in it.
Author wheelwright Posted February 22, 2011 Author Posted February 22, 2011 Let's say I have a passion for music. I see it in my mind. It tugs at me constantly. I spend hours, days, weeks on end putting that music into the world, eschewing my responsibilities of living. Bills go unpaid; my shower never gets wet. I'm focused. Would you say my passion is ruling me and, if so, in a positive way? Our psychologist had an interesting description about behavioral health. He said if a behavior inhibits the formation of healthy interpersonal relationships, then it bears scrutiny. Such relationships aren't limited to romantic ones. Does the expression of my passion inhibit such a formation? I'll use another anecdotal example showing the unhealthy aspects of passion ruling ones behavior.... my passion for said woman inhibited my ability to form other healthy romantic interpersonal relationships. This was most poignantly exemplified when unknown to myself, I began dating and had a relationship with the mother of one of her daughter's friends. Imagine the look on my face when she showed up at my then GF's door one day. Imagine what went through my GF's mind when she saw my face. That one moment probably failed the relationship, even though it went on for a few more months. My passion ruled me, to the detriment of a relationship. That was probably the point when I should have sought therapy. With said therapy, plus a destroyed marriage (yup, that passion again), I now live a quiet life. Passion has taken on a different dimension; a different texture. Life goes on. Sounds like following passion led to a certified mess. What is the texture of your new take on passion? Does it have to fit into a quiet life or just doesn't get pursued? Sounds sensible, if not - exciting. Yeah life goes on. I like that bit.
carhill Posted February 22, 2011 Posted February 22, 2011 Texture? It's better defined and within tighter boundaries of behavioral expression. Greater and more free expression within those boundaries. For example, I'm a lot more passionate and loving with my friends and experience greater synergy, while still minding the boundaries I learned from being an OM/MM. If anything, the freedom from the unhealthiness, both relationship-wise and of poor boundaries, has markedly improved the clarity of passions felt. I'm more positive, have accomplished more, and look forward to each day with greater zeal, even if totally alone. Today, I had a passion for hanging draperies
East7 Posted February 22, 2011 Posted February 22, 2011 Regarding A-s, passion is very often present although not enough to make life choices. Most MM/MW do have passion for their AP but they don't make any choice based on passion. My xMW cynical way of telling me that was "Love is not enough" line as a response to my will to have an exclusive relationship with her.
seren Posted February 22, 2011 Posted February 22, 2011 Passion in a R is possibly different to feeling passionate about something. I am passionate about flowers, they can see me spending hours just looking at them and marvelling at their beauty. I feel very passionate about injustice and am very vocal in calling out bad behaviour toward others, ditto politics, any of the 'isms that people adopt, rudeness, oh there is a whole list of them. They are my personal passions. I feel absolute joy about my lovely dogs, I love them to distraction and am often to be found with them both squishing me in a double labrador muddle. I am passionately protective of my people, my son is the light of my life. I feel passionate about the love I have for my H, it is unconditional, I simply could not choose to not love him if I tried, but am no doormat. But it is not always on the boil, that would leave us both bloody exhausted, both physically and emotionally. We just know that each of us love and so do not need to be constantly proclaiming it, although we tell each other often, but not just as a word thing. Passion as a tangible feeling is very different from lust or euphoria. I could probably feel lust for others, but passion? That is a mixture (for me) of the feeling of deep love and being loved, coupled with the safety to be inhibited and myself and of course a very healthy dose of lust. For me, tis the mix. I wouldn't want the constant looking over my shoulder feeling that passion sometimes brings in a relationship, but don't mind the keeping on my toes thing (H has to employ this too) as it keeps the frisson in the relationship. Don't know if I could have rambled on anymore than I have, this passion feeling is sure hard to pin down and I suppose it's what fires the blood, gets the adrenaline flowing and for me, needs the added makes my heart sing.
OWoman Posted February 22, 2011 Posted February 22, 2011 Just after musing on WF's thread, I was wondering how important passion is in making life choices? Have you made choices base on passion for a person or activity? Or do you have more 'sensible' means of choosing which path to take? I have found, repeatedly in my life, that where I have followed my passion, I have sustained interest and motivation and commitment to the activity / person; whereas where I have followed a more "sensible" path, I have felt disappointed, frustrated and downright depressed at times, and have not been able to sustain that involvement. People are different, so I'm sure what works for me won't work for others, but when I have counselled people I have advised them to consider - and take on board - what their head is telling them, but never to disregard what their heart is telling them. That (latter) path can only lead to regret, IME.
silverplanets Posted February 22, 2011 Posted February 22, 2011 Just after musing on WF's thread, I was wondering how important passion is in making life choices? Have you made choices base on passion for a person or activity? Or do you have more 'sensible' means of choosing which path to take? Hey ww, Good question .... and my take, based upon this current stage of understanding that life has brought me to, is that one needs to be passionate about life itself ... as a concept and a reality ... and everything else flows from there. I can't say it better than one of my favourite quotes. Albert Einstein, a man who sent his mind into the very heart of the structure of all that is around us, said "There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle." And I agree with this. At every level ... we are about 60% water and yet look what we can do ... we are estimated to have excess of 90 Billion neurons in each of us, our eyes alone are more complex than the most complex visioning systems we can devise, our minds allow us to create new tools, we live on a planet which if closer to the sun would heat up and if further away would cool down, just above our heads cosmic radiation constantly battles our magnetic belts and would strip the planet bare if they failed, below us in the earth's core the temperate is some 5,000 degrees C and the temperature in space is just above absolute zero. We each live, perched in this fine balance, blessed with our individual ablities for (for sake of argument) 90 years or so ... for the first 20 of those we are essentially children, for the last 10-20 maybe also not fully functional .. which gives us a zenith of some 50-60 years .... (less if, like me, you didn't fully realise the beauty of your own life until a later age !!! ) .... So, as Einstein said, we can either live out this time as if everthing is a miracle (ie have a passion for life itself) or we can live it as if none of it is a miracle. If you have a passion for life as a concept then, imho, you now have a baseline for your life ... you can be passionate about what you do, who you do it with, you can investigate all aspects of any choices you make logically and with the heart and you can do that investigation with passion. You can make mistakes and live them out with passion. You can cry, laugh, dance and sing with the ups and downs of life, all with an undiminished passion for the very concept of your life. And for me, in terms of this forum, perhaps the most important thing is that you can value YOUR life and YOUR time here with the same passion .. and you can choose to let go those things which don't celebrate your time on that planet with the same passion. I know that for a long time I didn't celebrate my time here that way ... and I was wrong ... my time here is just as valuable as anyone else's and deserves no less (and no more) celebration and passion ... xMW ultimately didn't share that value of my time on this planet, or her H's time on this planet or even her own time on this planet because she was prepared to waste all three. At the time I neither valued mine or hers enough either because I was prepared to do the same. So from where I am now do I think it's best to make a decision from the heart or to make it "sensibly" .. The answer is probably that it depends upon the decision .. but what is important to me is that I approach the actual decision with passion ... passionate to make the best decision with relevance to my life and my time on this planet ... and if I have that passion for making the decision then I am comfortable that I will fully investigate all options and reflect to choose the best one for my life. take care my friend Chris
woinlove Posted February 22, 2011 Posted February 22, 2011 Hey ww, Good question .... and my take, based upon this current stage of understanding that life has brought me to, is that one needs to be passionate about life itself ... as a concept and a reality ... and everything else flows from there. I can't say it better than one of my favourite quotes. Albert Einstein, a man who sent his mind into the very heart of the structure of all that is around us, said "There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle." And I agree with this. At every level ... we are about 60% water and yet look what we can do ... we are estimated to have excess of 90 Billion neurons in each of us, our eyes alone are more complex than the most complex visioning systems we can devise, our minds allow us to create new tools, we live on a planet which if closer to the sun would heat up and if further away would cool down, just above our heads cosmic radiation constantly battles our magnetic belts and would strip the planet bare if they failed, below us in the earth's core the temperate is some 5,000 degrees C and the temperature in space is just above absolute zero. We each live, perched in this fine balance, blessed with our individual ablities for (for sake of argument) 90 years or so ... for the first 20 of those we are essentially children, for the last 10-20 maybe also not fully functional .. which gives us a zenith of some 50-60 years .... (less if, like me, you didn't fully realise the beauty of your own life until a later age !!! ) .... So, as Einstein said, we can either live out this time as if everthing is a miracle (ie have a passion for life itself) or we can live it as if none of it is a miracle. If you have a passion for life as a concept then, imho, you now have a baseline for your life ... you can be passionate about what you do, who you do it with, you can investigate all aspects of any choices you make logically and with the heart and you can do that investigation with passion. You can make mistakes and live them out with passion. You can cry, laugh, dance and sing with the ups and downs of life, all with an undiminished passion for the very concept of your life. And for me, in terms of this forum, perhaps the most important thing is that you can value YOUR life and YOUR time here with the same passion .. and you can choose to let go those things which don't celebrate your time on that planet with the same passion. I know that for a long time I didn't celebrate my time here that way ... and I was wrong ... my time here is just as valuable as anyone else's and deserves no less (and no more) celebration and passion ... xMW ultimately didn't share that value of my time on this planet, or her H's time on this planet or even her own time on this planet because she was prepared to waste all three. At the time I neither valued mine or hers enough either because I was prepared to do the same. So from where I am now do I think it's best to make a decision from the heart or to make it "sensibly" .. The answer is probably that it depends upon the decision .. but what is important to me is that I approach the actual decision with passion ... passionate to make the best decision with relevance to my life and my time on this planet ... and if I have that passion for making the decision then I am comfortable that I will fully investigate all options and reflect to choose the best one for my life. take care my friend Chris Great post!! This is how I feel. Live your life with passion and you will see passionate connections with all kinds of people, and not just in the romantic connections. Passion that comes from within will last you a lifetime.
Author wheelwright Posted February 24, 2011 Author Posted February 24, 2011 Texture? It's better defined and within tighter boundaries of behavioral expression. Greater and more free expression within those boundaries. For example, I'm a lot more passionate and loving with my friends and experience greater synergy, while still minding the boundaries I learned from being an OM/MM. If anything, the freedom from the unhealthiness, both relationship-wise and of poor boundaries, has markedly improved the clarity of passions felt. I'm more positive, have accomplished more, and look forward to each day with greater zeal, even if totally alone. Today, I had a passion for hanging draperies Funny thing is, one of the first things I did when I started to get over xMOM was to make some curtains. Guess there's a metephor there too for those so inclined...
seren Posted February 24, 2011 Posted February 24, 2011 Funny thing is, one of the first things I did when I started to get over xMOM was to make some curtains. Guess there's a metephor there too for those so inclined... First thing I did on D Day was get slaughtered on Gin and dance around my kitchen to Fleetwood Mac, while alternating between hysteria and madness... go figure that one out although making curtains might have been far more out of character.
Author wheelwright Posted February 24, 2011 Author Posted February 24, 2011 Hey ww, Good question .... "There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle." We each live, perched in this fine balance, blessed with our individual ablities for (for sake of argument) 90 years or so ... for the first 20 of those we are essentially children, for the last 10-20 maybe also not fully functional .. which gives us a zenith of some 50-60 years .... (less if, like me, you didn't fully realise the beauty of your own life until a later age !!! ) .... So, as Einstein said, we can either live out this time as if everthing is a miracle (ie have a passion for life itself) or we can live it as if none of it is a miracle. If you have a passion for life as a concept then, imho, you now have a baseline for your life ... I know that for a long time I didn't celebrate my time here that way ... and I was wrong ... my time here is just as valuable as anyone else's and deserves no less (and no more) celebration and passion ... xMW ultimately didn't share that value of my time on this planet, or her H's time on this planet or even her own time on this planet because she was prepared to waste all three. At the time I neither valued mine or hers enough either because I was prepared to do the same. So from where I am now do I think it's best to make a decision from the heart or to make it "sensibly" .. The answer is probably that it depends upon the decision .. but what is important to me is that I approach the actual decision with passion ... passionate to make the best decision with relevance to my life and my time on this planet ... and if I have that passion for making the decision then I am comfortable that I will fully investigate all options and reflect to choose the best one for my life. take care my friend Chris I love Einstein quotes. I know I personally have passion for this world - people, nature, the sheer ridiculous miracle that from our Earth the size of the moon creates a perfect eclipse with our sun from time to time. And that that is also only for our time - that will change. I am rediscovering myself post-A right now, and my less passive passions are also coming to fruition. Curtain making (see above) and writing and generally having enormous passion for things I do as well as beauty etc. that I see. It was the latter that brought me through what felt like despair. I also like Seren have passion about injustice, and that also never died or went under. It's a shame though about that other passion - I enjoyed it so. And it felt as important as the sun and the moon to me. I am glad for my other passions. And I like the turn this thread has taken - that passion is somehow a source of involvement with life. That teaches me something I am learning while I am learning it.
Author wheelwright Posted February 24, 2011 Author Posted February 24, 2011 First thing I did on D Day was get slaughtered on Gin and dance around my kitchen to Fleetwood Mac, while alternating between hysteria and madness... go figure that one out although making curtains might have been far more out of character. The curtains came after 20 months of shame at the fullness of my bottle recycling. Not to mention the nights out. Fleetwood Mac? Did a bit. Try 'So Lonely' by Nouvelle Vague. I didn't alternate between hysteria and madness - I lived them at the same time! I'm glad you got through it. Your posts really speak to me with their honesty.
Author wheelwright Posted February 24, 2011 Author Posted February 24, 2011 Passion in a R is possibly different to feeling passionate about something. I am passionate about flowers, they can see me spending hours just looking at them and marvelling at their beauty. I feel passionate about the love I have for my H, it is unconditional, I simply could not choose to not love him if I tried, but am no doormat. Don't know if I could have rambled on anymore than I have, this passion feeling is sure hard to pin down and I suppose it's what fires the blood, gets the adrenaline flowing and for me, needs the added makes my heart sing. I loved this post, because the sentiments about passion are so well put and real. You have to read all of Seren's post to get it. But having read SilverPlanets post I can't help thinking if in fact the two passions mentioned here (bolded) are not so different? They are passions that won't die no matter what happens.
lovingwhatis Posted February 24, 2011 Posted February 24, 2011 This is why i keep coming back to LS!! Awesome responses, thank you! Seren, you again amaze me with your candor, that image of you dancing in your kitchen on Fleetwod mac will stay with me. Silver, wow, wonderfully expressed by you and Einstein! Yes, discovering that passion for life after years of slumber-it feels amazing, doesn't it! You mention that maybe the A brought you to that. I know it is not simple causality, but i know for me the experience has brought me to crack open my shell and finally SEE the marvel of this Life! And why not other circumstances? Because this one shook me to my core. Passion to me is subtle electricity, a fuel, a jolt towards something. It has definite power, and when experienced within that balanced place, it propels all kinds of creative impulses. Passion for a person maybe coupled with other things like chemistry, attraction. Yeah, life is fun!
silverplanets Posted February 26, 2011 Posted February 26, 2011 (edited) This is why i keep coming back to LS!! Awesome responses, thank you! Seren, you again amaze me with your candor, that image of you dancing in your kitchen on Fleetwod mac will stay with me. Silver, wow, wonderfully expressed by you and Einstein! Yes, discovering that passion for life after years of slumber-it feels amazing, doesn't it! You mention that maybe the A brought you to that. I know it is not simple causality, but i know for me the experience has brought me to crack open my shell and finally SEE the marvel of this Life! And why not other circumstances? Because this one shook me to my core. Passion to me is subtle electricity, a fuel, a jolt towards something. It has definite power, and when experienced within that balanced place, it propels all kinds of creative impulses. Passion for a person maybe coupled with other things like chemistry, attraction. Yeah, life is fun! lwi - I love the bit bolded above. How strange is it to stand back and marvel that the depth of the impact that we needed to finally crack "ourselves" open to life is directly related to how deep we have buried "ourselves" in the first place. Along the same vein, for me, it was also strange to re-frame my life against the question "Have I always been trying to shock myself into life" ... because if I do that then I see that the pain was never enough (not just in terms of the A) but in terms of all other things I have done ... so I always escalated it, moved on , tried to find something more extreme ... until ultimately I found it .. something that, hit home, something that rocked me right to the core and blew away all the false selfs and beliefs I had wrapped around myself ... and there, lo and behold, was me ... where I had been trapped all along ... deep inside myself. I don't feel trapped in me now ... I don't feel any disconnect at any levels of my life ... I no longer feel that there is something "wrong" deep inside (without knowing what it is) ... Its like I've reconnected the outer me with the inner me ... and we don't need any false selfs to face the world ... we're quite ok just as we are :-) be safe Chris :-) Edited February 26, 2011 by silverplanets Correct bad spelling !!!
findingnemo Posted February 27, 2011 Posted February 27, 2011 Just after musing on WF's thread, I was wondering how important passion is in making life choices? Have you made choices base on passion for a person or activity? Or do you have more 'sensible' means of choosing which path to take? I have never made a decision or choice based on passion alone. Having a passion for something or someone is one of the reasons I would choose it. There would have to be other considerations as well. I agree that As end because the MP realizes that there are other considerations that may as important if not more than "feeling" passionate.
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