Passion.

Now there’s a word full of meanings. I like to think I have a lot of passion in me. Passion for literature, passion for music, passion for ideas and concepts that are meaningful to me. When I truly take something on, it turns to passion. But in order for me to become passionate about something, it needs to be whole. Now, how is something whole? Something turns whole when it has everything in itself. When it is perfection.

This might still be hard to grasp because this is my own definition, something I feel, something that feels logical to me.

Using yesterdays post about Leonard Cohen for an example: Leonard Cohen, to me, is whole. The concept Leonard Cohen is whole. I can relate to everything about him and his music, nothing sticks out. His music is brilliant, his lyrics are pure poetry, they are meaningful, his ideas on life relate to mine, he has no offensive opinions (in accordance with mine) and he is über cool. I.e.: the concept Leonard Cohen is whole.

This idea on wholeness can make things a little difficult for me. If there’s a song I like, the beat, the bass, the rhythm, it can be ruined for me if the lyrics are wrong. Being wrong would be that they convey an offensive idea, that they are vulgar, or just dumb. If this happens, I can’t listen to it anymore. The same goes for books. I might love the plot idea, but if the writing is wrong, I can’t read it – and the other way around. It might also be that I find out the author stands for something offensive to me. It ruins the whole.

This idea that it needs to be whole isn’t making my life any easier. In order to become really passionate about something, it needs the wholeness. There are a few things I can truly be passionate about, one, as mentioned, is Leonard Cohen. It doesn’t mean I can’t like something, I might like a book although the author did/was or is something I don’t appreciate. But it stays at level: Like.

Passion.

Passion makes the world go around. It turns on that fire inside, it engulfs you, spins you, makes your heart beat like a drum, it takes over everything and in those moments of perfection, you truly live.

Yet passion is a dangerous business when it is based on wholeness. If you discover that splinter, that flaw, it all explodes around you – only ruins left behind. You look around you and you see the gray shards and lifeless images of a former passion and it leaves you feeling hurt and raw as if something was stolen from you.

So why build up such demands, castles made of glass and thin porcelain, knowing they are so easily brought down? Why not base passion on something less? Something not demanding absolute perfection?

It just doesn’t work that way.

Passion is perfection – perfection is passion. Black or white. No middle ground.

This demand for perfection is a passion for me.