Persuit of Passion

I'm faced with so many options right now, none of which are very practical, but what if I made them practical? What I struggle with is expectation, and it doesn't seem to jive with what I see as happiness. I'm not going to go into the philosophical rabbit hole of what happiness is other than to say that I don't know if it could be defined as one thing if defined at all, but we all want it, and we spend every waking hour trying to find it.

The mixed signals come from every-day immersion. Our economy thrives off of the hunt for happiness. Everyone is trying to sell you the next fix, whatever works, what makes you happy. If you can work harder then you might be able to make more money to be able to afford the things that will make you feel secure and complete.

Bullshit.

But I eat it every day. Can I really help it if I was born into it? My high school principle used to favor group punishment because he said "We all live in the same world." To me that means that we're all a part of it and we're all responsible in some way, shape, or form. As a Christian, I am forgiven for being a part of it. The way we treat other people that we may not know, our lack of compassion, all of the safety that we build up around ourselves. God wants us to be safe, right? I don't know. I mean most of the disciples were crucified themselves, Paul was imprisoned, I just don't see how being a Christian means you should be careful. And what part of Christianity isn't radical? I'm not saying it's everyone's calling to see what I see, but I see it none the less. What pisses me off to near violence is when people write my passion off as youthful vigor. As true as that may be, maybe this world could use some of it. It makes some people bitter and angry. I suspect that's because radicalism throws their entire life into question. I know I get mad when someone comes up to me after I've worked hard on something, only to question it. But I'm not doing that, other than writing in my journal and trying to live my life. I make people angry with what I care about, and that makes me angry. Randy was observing people's reaction to realistic magic from guys like David Blane, the kind of magic that really asks the question "How did that happen?!?" with no seemingly reasonable answer. He said that people freak out because when they can't explain something, when they can't come up for a reason as to how the laws of their existence were broken, it turns their entire world upside-down and rains inquiry over everything they thought was concrete. So you get a bunch of Ben Franklins running around. Ben Franklin took the Bible and cut out all of the miracles that Jesus performed because they were too radical to believe. That's how I feel about the people that piss on my parade. They do it because they don't want my passions to upset what they know about themselves and their successes and shortcomings.

I talk a lot though. I think that's where my scoffers gain the credibility to say what they say and belittle me. I talk a lot. Perhaps I should do something about what I believe. Perhaps I should stop marching with the thousands of malcontents of my generation and actually do something instead of bitching about how it should be done.

But what I don't want to be is bitter. I know that our natural tendency is to be a professional on everyone else but ourselves. I do it all the time. I make broad generalizations and I objectify people as if they were bugs kept in a jar on the desk of a curious child. I feel safe when my bugs are in my jars. But I don't even know myself. How could I know the inner workings of others? I can only do that by degrading them into a simplicity that I can master. We make people predictable and simple. You can't do that and love at the same time. It won't work. But I know people objectify me. Every day I am subject to the criticism and mastery of someone else's wisdom and understanding of how I approach my life. Granted, we all have our own insight in certain areas, but few are the times when our true insight is what we base our judgment on. It is much easier to base judgment off of bitterness, envy, anger, insecurity, sadness, pain, depression, personal fear, shame, and disbelief. And what is more, it brings a shameful and secret sense of joy when we can stop someone else from chasing and potentially reaching the passions that we once tried to find but failed to discover. We do it because it makes us feel normal, like we haven't failed at all.

And perhaps I will fail. Many of us feel a calling for something that we just can't reach in all practicality, but my failure to reach my goals and dreams will not be because I listened to the reasoning of old and bitter men. I will only stop when God Himself makes it impossible.

So I'm going to dwell on that for a while. I'm going to go into a season of meditation and prayer on what I should do, because what I am currently doing is dissatisfying as hell only because I know I was made with a much higher purpose. I know this about myself and I believe it about everyone else. But for whatever reason, we tone those fires down in our hearts because we have so little as it is. What if we were to even lose that?


The sun was out today and I spent time in it. I am ignited again.