Passion Play

I've been devoting a lot of thought recently to the kinds of things I get nerdy/excited about, and it's been intriguing to see what other people choose to extrapolate from that. In brief summary, I live life enthusiastically. When I love something (or someone, for that matter) I go all in, both feet wet, water above my head, take your pick of water-related commitment metaphors.

And there are a lot of things I love, or at the very least, there are lot of things that I appreciate and know a lot about.

I've just discovered that those are sometimes misleading for some people.

Because there is a difference between things that I like and things that I feel truly passionate about. When I meet people, I want them to accept what I'm passionate about, not what I like. Passion, for me at least, represents something I'm willing to devote lifelong commitment to. Things like the gospel, family, and editing. Each of those is so ingrained in my identity that you probably shouldn't try to think about me without at least one, if not all, of those things connected to me.

My likes are often things I have a passing attachment to. Sometimes they're rooted in childhood (my affection for Tron, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, and King's Quest), or attached to fond memories (my current attachment to Jeeps, my historical fondness for Legend of Zelda games, or my interest in planes and flight patterns). But the point of them is that they're not permanent, nor do they define who I am.

I can tell you an alarming amount of information about Tolkien's linguistics, text-based computer games, or balancing a sound system for entertainment purposes. If you talk to me about car engines or hardware-software relationships, I can contribute intelligently to the conversation.

But those aren't me.

I bring this whole subject up because I'm realizing that I let those likes shine too strong sometimes because I know that other people might like to hear about them, or it might forge a connection. And it comes back to bite me sometimes. Because sometimes that person I was trying to connect to falls in love with the wrong version of me. He likes a part of me that is only the tiniest facet of what makes me who I am.

And then I feel trapped by what I'm not.

Yes, this is about relationship drama. What else? I guess the moral of the story is that it's important to worry more about being yourself than about making a connection to someone. And that the idea of "self" (to border on philosophic) is far more complex than a series of likes and dislikes.

Do I get where I'm going with this? Not really. Consider it a stream-of-consciousness exercise. I suppose, for my own benefit, this is me drawing the line between passions and interests. You can ask me what I like, and I can answer with a fairly lengthy list, but you'll never get to the heart of it if you don't look for what I'm passionate about. Because I think that it's only when you find what motivates people that you get a taste of who they really are.

Something to chew on, if you care to dwell on it. If not, I'll graze on the food-for-thought on my own. :)