One of my reading partners (we read a lot of books and share our perspectives) argued that too much passion isn’t different from drug addiction, which can eventually lead to madness. The argument, at first instant, sounded weird. As we interrogated the assertion deeper, our lines of thought crossed, and our conclusions were nearly the same. Indeed, there is some social relationship between passion for something and addiction to something.
When you are passionate about something, you do it with a different strength, commitment, consistency and some natural urge coming from nowhere. To stop doing that thing is never easy. It will cause pain, sickness, and in some cases, you could even die. Yes, a real passion lives like a spirit in your body. Casting it out isn’t an easy thing.
Apparently, we have all become aware of how drug addicts behave. They virtually cannot survive a day without more. Those outside the bracket who see their struggle see them as people deserving immediate rehabilitation to save their lives. Contrary, drug addicts don’t see themselves as such; they see their own world and live in their own world. The few who submit themselves to withdraw from such addiction, indeed, accept a battle to live or die.
The link is lucid, passion and addiction take control of the bodies, brains and minds of their victims.
Passion can make you a great expert. People excel by their passion. When such passion manifest in helping personal development and or social transformation, I call it positive passion(PP). On the other hand, it is negative passion if it keeps you stagnant, affect your personal development and or having some burden to family and society.
The big conversation is, can passion be redirected, controlled or guided? Let’s think about it and let the lovers of philosophy and psychologists share their expertise.
The knowledge of these would help in the making of personal decisions. It would also help teachers and parents in offering career guidance to their wards.
Denis Andaban
The Village Boy From DBI
