What is passion?
The outward effects of passion are desperately blind. They are the things that make you wonder if someone, infected with passion, is even conscious. Good or bad, a passionate person will follow their heart, setting aside all roadblocks, external or internal. Wonderful and horrible things happen in the name of passion. It seems to be an evolutionarily developed response to get things done quickly.
Internally, passion is tunnel-visioned. Passion sees one singular path to a given goal and sticks to it so rapidly that alternative paths are never even given the opportunity to be tried. Passion turns off learned responses and invokes an automatic pilot of its own.
And passion spreads, infecting those who have a similar weakness for the same idea. Passion strikes a chord that nobody can put a finger on, but know that it is inside themselves, too. A shared passion exponentially increases the likelihood that danger will be ignored. Likewise, it increases the probability of success.
And so passion is often invoked by great leaders who analytically consider an idea and put such a one-sided spin on it that followers are drawn into this leader's words. A great leader gives his followers no other choice but to follow, disguising it as a choice. The idea of free will is more attractive than the reality of free will. So a great leader can tap into this universal passion, with incredible results.
In world politics, it seems that we are constantly faced with this situation. Citizens are blinded by analytical leaders with both positive and negative results - and these leaders are looked upon as intelligent and cold. Citizens blinded by passionate leaders almost always end up slipping up and figuring out that their leader does not deserve to be leading them. Passion doesn't do well, coming from the top.
But when it comes down to local politics and development work, passion from the top is quite necessary. A small project can be finished successfully before it can be analyzed to death. And if it doesn't work, time and money (not lives) are the victims.
Diamentino pitched the idea of creating a school for training English teachers in the primary schools today. There's a definite need, and also available trainers in the area. The passion in his eyes, which I often see, was apparent. But I did something I rarely do - I told him to keep it in mind and sit on the idea for a week or two to let it stew. I saw the passion drain from his eyes, but not the idealism. I think it's a fantastic idea, but I don't want his idea to be trapped and confined by passion. It hurt to see the fire extinguished, but I wanted him to lose his tunnel vision. If he still thinks he can make it happen, and that it's a good idea, I'll help him in any way I can and make it happen.
Sometimes I feel like my trained reaction to look at an idea critically takes all the fun out of it. I guess that's why I feel the need to just throw caution to the wind and do some things with pure passion in mind.
So, to define passion...it seems to be like fire literally and figuratively. A fire can give and take away life, spread incredibly quickly and is completely indiscriminate. And like everything else, needs to be balanced out.
Peace
John
