The mimicry of passion

If one were to believe the updates on the social media, the speeches of politicians, and the jokes of stand-up comedians, the world today is one massive tidal wave of passion. Passion has suddenly transformed into some sort of a uniform that everyone is racing to beg, borrow, steal, or buy because wearing it makes one transcend all that is mundane. We have risen as one and are frantically waving to each other saying, ‘I am passion’.

Passion is absolutely fine… and there is nothing wrong in more and more people displaying passion for whatever it is that they are doing. From politics to patriotism and everything else in between, passion seems to making the world move faster these days. Or this is what their words make us believe. If this is true then we do have a large share of people who echo what Seth Godin wrote: ‘Leadership, on the other hand, is about creating change you believe in.’ What needs to be seen, however, is if the entire movement surrounding passion is deep and stable.

Why is it then that a lot of those who talk about their passion, for instance, about travel, slowly drift towards activities that earn them money? Once this happens, all the passion about weaving in an environment-friendly attitude with fun and learning in travel is suddenly over-shadowed by a race to compete in a market-space where passion is bandied about without an iota of seriousness in actions. Why is it that those who write about responsible tourism and travel are then busy arranging travel for individuals and batches without ensuring that that their efforts are in no way harming our riversides, mountains, beaches, countryside, cities, and rural belts? Is it because there is some confusion or tussle going on between passion and pretension?

Let us examine another popular passion today: writing. It appears that every other person is eager to link his or her passion with writing. Go deeper and you’ll be taken aback by the sheer number of these passionate writers more interested in conducting workshops in writing. Thus we have an over-dose of retreats for writers where the art is being taught by those who have a few articles published on their personal blog or maybe a book or two being pushed on the social media by vanity publishers. The same is true for art, photography, yoga, diets, and it makes me dizzy that I am surrounded by so much passion-filled talent. Hundreds of people are out there willing to convert everyone into a leader or a motivated human. Again, I am forced to wonder if all this is about passion or pretension. If it is a charade and not a real passion, we are in for big trouble.

It is the same with politics where pretensions are masquerading as passions. We have all seen more than sixty years of passion for removing poverty, education for all, making housing a reality, building our nation’s infrastructure, and not interfering with basic human freedom tenets… and yet we have seen cartoonists jailed, the industry moans the lack of a skilled work-force, mainstream media remains busy concocting headlines, housing is in shambles. The truth is that passion remains a part of pre-election speeches so far and so I must conclude that pretensions being hurriedly dressed up as passions. If pretensions are truer than the passionate elements, we are definitely in for a shock some or the other day.

However, despite all these wretched examples, there is one point-of-view that still needs to be mentioned. We have all come across texts or movie dialogues declare that if one passionately imagines something, it comes true. Shah Rukh Khan had a dialogue in some movie that reflects what Paulo Coelho wrote: ‘When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.’ The way I interpret this is that each of us has the power to create their own universe. Even Rhonda Byrne writes: ‘You become what you think about most… but you also attract what you think about most.’ Our thoughts are powerful indeed and can change our circumstances if we are focused and passionate enough. Kurt Vonnegut wasn’t off the mark when he wrote that ‘we are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.’

We are living in times where it is rather tempting and seemingly easy so go on creating stories about our talents and our beliefs in the hope of benefiting from them… and a lot of us are doing it without a break. This can spell trouble because we are then forcing our lives into a zone that, at some point, might appear strange, unbecoming, and a liability. We need to understand the difference between passion and a sheer mimicry of passion because this is the zone that can break sanity into a thousand pieces. We need to tread carefully with our story-telling.

#LifePretension

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Arvind Passey
29 April 2019