Passion to Survive is Passion - But not like the Passion of Instagram

I remember very vividly - a moment when I told two women at work, "Dreams are for rich people." It wasn't the ravings of an angry woman that was paid sixty cents on a man's dollar. It wasn't the depressed response of a sick brain. It is a commandment. It is how a pragmatic mind copes with the realities of the time while still striving for the most (to be the most) - at any given moment.

As a child, I made up a story about my origins. A child that traveled seven-thousand miles via hot air balloon from India to Western Pennsylvania. Now, I am vividly authentic about what actually transpired through yesterday. I do my best to see these occurrences for what they are and not just how they made me feel while pairing them with the actualities of what my life can become as the person that I am now. That's mutable. That's nothing and everything.

In the words of my therapist who heard it from a healer - it will all end badly. Meaning: we'll die. The people we love die. Our pets die. Marriages end one way or the other. Jobs are won and lost or never won at all. Money comes and quickly it goes. People change. Our favorite shows are cancelled. The Who will eventually have a farewell tour that is actually a farewell.

Be ready to change your goals, but never change your values.

 Unverified quote attributed to the Dalai Lama that is also truthful even if Neil Young, Kurt Cobain or The Highlander said it.

Concrete dreams are for the world that doesn't wake to the reality of ending badly. Or, hasn't had much end badly so far. Or maybe hasn't seen many ends...at all. Bless them.

Passions feel like concrete dreams to me. Many probably don't feel this way, but if it all ends badly and if our realities are mutable then what is supposed to feel like a passion seems less passionate...as it were. 

The intrinsic shaming of not having a locked-down passion is alienating. Even if said passions are illegal, harmful or malicious (in 2019, romanticizing drug use and addiction is alive and well). Or, believing in the idea of being passionate about something for a short period time that is often known as lacking focus, drive, discipline and determination. Lust for activities and passions (beliefs, hobbies...whatever comes to mind) can be as brightly and quickly-burning as the lust for a partner that we know is Mister Right Now. Can't they? Better to burn out than to fade away and all that (attributed to - Neil Young, Kurt Cobain and The Highlander. What a crew!). 

I feel like my passions aren't something that I've decided with great conviction. They often feel like they're things that I've mused of in retrospect. The understanding that, in that moment, the passion to learn the thing that would make my life better was enough - even if it wasn't something that would be bucketed as a talent, a cottage industry or a physical reminder of hard work. That passions can be honing survival skills that lead to success. Being passionate about achievements that make me one percent better than the day before doesn't have to be worthy of a social media post of a photo of feet sitting in a distant land. Or, a sliced photo of a before and after person: disdain and self-loathing in one frame and interradiant and glowing self-discipline in the other.

So many people drive themselves to madness with the notion that they are not living their fullest aspirations because they feel uninteresting, unmotivated and lacking in passion. If, upon reflection, a ruthless moral inventory and accurate historical recount that is actually true then the work and the searching begins. But, is there reason to rejoice that the passion may be making it work? Believing in the value of living is passion. It is the only passion that will sustain any of us when it ends badly. 

Truthfully, I started writing this to work through my feelings of the realizations that those that seem to be truly living through their passions are doing so at the expense of someone else. This is a notion that even after five years of therapy I cannot resolve with any real belief that it is going to be okay. That the idea that those that seem to be able to take leaps of faith, to live some kind of artistic fantasy or that are not tethered at all - are doing so at the expense of someone that is tethered to the realities of time and the needs of modernity. And, in a lot of cases I'm sure it's true. But, the growth through the writing is in knowing that even their situations will end badly - just like mine. Or, maybe theirs have ended badly already. Or, maybe it's in the process of ending badly. Or, maybe it isn't. But, what does it really have to do with me?

If it is the case that my passions are situational, fleeting and necessary in the moment in time to transition from survival to a possibility of thriving to a moment of flourishing then it seems expense free, doesn't it? That is not say that interactions aren't costly, but the idea of passions costing a foregone and overextended sponsor their own passionate existence isn't a part of the fiscal equation: I am my own debtor, benefactor and accountant. Could it be as easy as that?

It usually leads back to the reality that I am the answer to this puzzle. But sometimes, man, I just want someone else to do it. In those moments I can commit to doing the best to remember that it always ends badly...and the beginning might've been something that lead me to fabricate an origin, but the middle is the thing that makes us want to stay alive.