On Passion

You have to take a stand if the music is too loud for you to take. Facing the music is tough sometimes you may run but that’s not guts and what’s guts is to take that stand and face it, for at least you know you can face it, at least you can say you faced it, at least all things being the way they are - ain't not that great or good, so what the hell- better face it and die a strong one with passion rather than a weakling who ran away. Sometimes you may but I'd prefer all times you stay and face it.

Passion is embarking on something that’s difficult, that’s the reason why it’s called passion because it involves all your senses it takes you out of the delirium of life and place you on a pedestal were you would feel that the Damocles sword is hanging over you. Its inert, its within and it unwinds and brings forth an energy that’s unforeseen and that’s the reason you feel you have two choices either to run or to stay, and its due to the energy that it unwinds from within sometimes you feel weak and from deep inside each of us, a pressure seems to build which does not let go and we fear failure which is again an emotion that we term as Satan : when it manifests itself into something other than the defined basic morals and values  and the winners term as 'the losers’ or as people who could not take it &c.. and we run and we hide forgetting were we began - losing the energy that catapulted us to this level.

At this stage we feel the comfort level of having lost all that energy and it makes us sullen from within withdrawing away into nothingness - the state which is most pleasant, as we are not answerable to anything and anybody- except ourselves, but that phase it is quite easy because the questions that demand attention gets muffled by the calm breathing patterns that ensues in the outer core. But this hangs on our neck for forever and we feel helpless as days move into months and months into years and we loose ourselves to the world of least inertia.

Now the choice is ours again as always, which is better - the inertia-less existence were we do what natural circumstances pushed us to do and loose our own self to the withering masses, or the boundless freedom of seeking what we intend to do with ourselves and enjoying the freedom of failure, of trial and error, of judgment, and at last of eternal peace and success, Amen.

Passion is within all of us we have to keep disturbing it all the time and it would challenge us with multitudes of corners which are unappealing to the senses but we got to try to love those corners that’s all life is, simple...I guess that’s what makes the world such a beautiful as well as pathetic place at the same time. It's because of people with passion. All of us who go about their business in a manner which affects other's lives in a good or bad way have ardor. That’s where I appreciate some of the movies that Hollywood comes up with. I've never been exposed much to movies from other cultures except may be Indian, Italian, some Akira Kurasowa from Japan, some French and a lot of Malayalam and Bengali. But almost all movies, which affect us in some manner, are really based on passion. That’s the base pattern. The movie's character has passion - we love it, the movie's story-line has passion - we love it. In fact, everything we do, we say, we enact on, we react on, we conjure up in our mind; all of it is based on the the fervor we have in our innards. That’s why we tend to do it and then redo it again and again until we achieve some semblance of having reached a crossroad which looks more welcoming.

A lot of my conversations with friends, family, acquaintances or strangers are instances of listening to anecdotes and yarns from their past. And they keep repeating these tales or reaching the very same stories again and again and each time they narrate its always mentioned in a different manner trying to make it more attractive than the previous time, but at the end of the day we do get bored of it because we know its the same story. But look deeper and you would find that that’s the thing they had passion for. In fact that is the one thing, if followed religiously with extreme vigor, without worrying about money, society, family, circumstances and all those things that stop us, the person would have achieved heights hitherto untouched and the happiness that accompanies such simple passions is beyond a lot that we tend to experience.

They keep repeating these stories because the intensity of the passion that they tasted and the absolute exaltation they got familiar with during those few days that they did those things. They remember every tiny detail so picturesquely, precisely and their eyes widen and the lips move faster, and they want for us to respond similarly, they are on a high; a raise that even the best psychedelic drug cannot deliver. During those few days of their monotonous existence they had forgotten almost every other thing of this world. Nothing mattered then and when they are telling you the story nothing else matters to them but to seek the very same ecstasy and enthusiasm and share it with others.

A friend of mine went for a two week mountaineering program. She has told me that story at least 50 times. In myriad ways with multitude of emotions and it was almost a lesson for me on understanding human depth and sensations. She would talk about the difficulties of terrains, the beauty that awaited at the end of the road, the small hassles of morning chores in the open mountains, a majestic horse that suddenly came out of nowhere in a misty morning, unfurling its heavy brown mane between the flow of the fog, the haze lifting itself for the regal animal. I could see it and I could visualize everything she spoke of. I had felt a tug in my heart, a heavy brimming within me: it was not sadness in the fact that she is corporate honcho who busies herself in the everyday muddle but because of the force of the sentiment she was sharing I was moved at the exhilaration that she was infecting. The achievement of reaching the top, her team, the teamwork they enjoyed, the camaraderie with the instructor, the stories of small issues and small delights : all coming together to form a brilliant anecdote of  extreme passion. I reckon she never had anything as exciting as that ever in here life. Many a thing may have passed her by were she was happy and thrilled: a promotion, marriage, kids, the dream job, an awesome salary &c but nothing compares to that particular elation.

There are stories that would make one weep, and there are stories of brilliant souls that took the jump and came out smiling; which by the way, is always.

That’s what passion is about. Its about wherewithal freedom in your life.. When one has passion one does not have to really think about thinking out of the box or looking beyond to come up with something extraordinary. All those philosophical gaga goes for a toss as these are natural ingredients which are within us and permeates itself outwards when the nature of things you do are obsession and zeal bound. The deep rooted human need to do something special, to show that we are important and that we are to mean something with our birth is extreme and the outward expressions of those primary requirements seep out only when you follow your deep endemic purpose. All the self-help books in the world would have lost their relevance and value if we found what we wanted to do and followed it without any fears, inhibitions or hangovers that make us chained to the paradigm of safe existence.

I would like to quote one of favorite authors Mr. Charles Bukowski here "We are all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing."