bigger than you... and you are not me.
Had a strange night at work. After getting less than four hours sleep, I did yet again a whole shift. What can I say... I need the money. Still, conditions are getting better. Had an interesting chat with the Boss...... imparted some of my boring knowledge of WMP (working memory placekeepers). It is a psychology theory, that is wholly boring to
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But, as usual.. things are never easy. The immediate monetary problems are something to be reckoned with, by everyone, not just me. And I'm better off than most; I have qualifications enough, and connections enough to know that I'm never going to be starving to death. That is some consilation.
Yet, that doesn't go far enough anymore. It is a personal thing. All my life, I've had people belive that I have qualities that will get me far in life. People that see me passionate, and people that have encouraged me to go ahead and follow my dreams. I'm finding now that I just don't have any dreams... don't know what I want. If I was back in highschool, and persuing a carrear as a symphonic player, for example, I can handle that. I have a friend who is doing so... and even though she is not naturally gifted... she has this direction that she'll follow, regardless of success or not. I just don't have a clear reason in sight, nothing that I feel passionate enough to do. There are days that I just pilfer my life away... looking for ... "something" to do. it is hardly empowering.
I want to feel really passionate about something. Anything. I want to wake up every morning and know that I have a goal to persue, or that at least there is some sort of viable reason for me to exist in the circle of life.
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I want to feel really passionate about something. Anything. I want to wake up every morning and know that I have a goal to persue, or that at least there is some sort of viable reason for me to exist in the circle of life.
Yeah, but you're getting trapped in the usual depressive's vicious cycle (and I use the word depressive not to mean "clinical depressive" but "person who is in downwards feedback loop"). Neither worrying about not having a goal, or lying in bed searching through candidate goals (or watching TV, or something) is the best way to find something to be passionate about. It's a good way to feel exactly the way you feel now though. (And knowing this is a good way to keep feeling that, etc etc.)
Also, I notice that in this comment, your need to be passionate is (partly?) imposed from the outside: "people belive that I have qualities that will get me far in life. People that see me passionate, and people that have encouraged me to go ahead and follow my dreams." While that was probably helpful when you were being aimed at success like an arrow at an archery target, it's a less helpful expectation now, and probably one to question a little bit. You know, I know and they know that it takes passion and other stuff (luck, hard work) to achieve your dreams.
Passion is unlikely to strike you suddenly today while you're on the toilet, and even if it is, it's probably going to be something rather desperate that you'll cling to for a week and then discover that you have no real passion for. My theory is that it's like the advice people give to those seeking a partner: get out, get busy, and finding people to date (or in your case, ideas to date) will take care of itself. Similarly, getting passionate about something is presumably like starting a relationship. You might not get that "foom I want to be an acrobat" feeling right way the first time you're on a trapeze. In fact you probably won't just as most people don't get that "I want to marry you" feeling the first time they kiss someone.
So, where this is leading up to is: time to spend time at the luck and hard work end of the scale. If you need some kind of pithy goal that you can sum up in diary entries, let it be that. There are two kinds of passion: the first is the gift of teenagers for their instrument who they want to play solo in Vienna or their girlfriend who they want to marry. You don't get that kind of certainty and instant passion any more. You'll discover you love something more slowly. Be open to new possibilities, but don't expect to fall in love right away.
And I get the impression that you think this is how normal people discover their inferior passions, but the great passions are bang: amazing, instant, final. Well, maybe some are (let's say, that of the mathematician Paul Erdos, who gave up love and health for maths, and who not coincidently was a child prodigy). But there's a lot of great passions (and great success) perpetrated by people who sulked around thinking "do I really like maths all that much or do I want to meet girls and be an acrobat?" (Erdos's great friend Ron Graham who not coincidently was not a child prodigy).
So, time to bite the bullet and accept that there might be a little while and a few misdirections (some of which you've already tried) between yourself and passion. And that you might only become passionate about something after you've worked at it. Time to find something else to haul yourself out of bed in the morning.
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I had never thought about it in terms of relationships, but the analogy is very accurate. It goes a lot further than that for me, given my views on say, monogamy. Interests and girlfriends in my life have been steadily many throughout different times.
Hehehhe, Ron Graham was an acrobat, wasn't he? Trampolinist and juggler, and he was married to a fairly attractive Vietnamese (?) mathematician. Yes, I want to be Ron Graham.
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