passion is a weird thing. everyone seems to know about it, but there are a disconcerting number of people actually living it.
That’s an awful thing to process as a twenty-four year old who just signed up for my first 401k yesterday.
I grew up in a nice town, city rather. It had the ocean, which taught me to love. My family was close and summertime was the best. But I didn’t identify with the people that surrounded me. Sure, I probably didn’t know who I was at that age, but I could blend in with the other fish in the sea if I tried, swim in basically the same direction. I moved away after graduating, but found the same fish elsewhere. The ones that didn’t really feel me, but that was fine. I was strong enough to swim against the current on my own. Then I moved to San Francisco and found the fucking rapids with a thousand kinds of fish all flying and flopping in more directions than I ever considered. San Francisco exposed the possibility of endless possibilities. I didn’t need to try each one, but it’s something special to be faced with a million examples of what it looks like to live out your dreams and pursue what you believe in wholeheartedly. So now I have that exposure and experience, but I’ve left SF and I feel like this wise old fish that’s Seen Some Shit, but I’m back in the same old current and I’m expected to just join the boring-ass flow.
Humans are pretty incredible when they tap into their potential. My god is it intoxicating to witness a person diving heart-first, unabashedly, into the center of their passion. Think about the best concert you’ve ever seen. What do you think the artist was feeling in those moments? What were YOU feeling? Were you thinking about your taxes or the second cupcake you had at lunch?
I’m going to answer that for you. No. You were not because your heart was busy Coming to Life and your heart doesn’t give a shit about what’s practical. Most of my favorite musicians are also some of my favorite humans- both the ones I know personally and those I’ve never met. Not because I play much or because I am In The Biz, but I am deeply familiar with what it feels like to have a fire in your heart. And artists, the ones that feel forcefully pushed to create, get that. They feel called to pursue the thing inside them that’s bursting to be seen. And I’ve got that thing too. My guess is you do too, or did. Mine isn’t labeled as simply as “music,” but I know that feeling of deep-seeded passion and I’m not trying to let it dissolve while I swim with the same old mainstream current.
Fast forward to now. Remember that retirement plan? It’s a great investment, no question. But you know what it enforces? Fear. Passion’s biggest deflater. A full time job, benefited position, plain and simple money, is the best security blanket. When it is so necessary and lacking it can suffocate the life straight out of a person, having it is the ultimate protection.
But you know what? Humans created money. As my dad recently said, “humans didn’t evolve to deal with money, so they’re not that good at it.” It isn’t one of our basic needs, it has just become the vehicle by which we can secure those needs. To secure basic survival must be the most stress-reducing thing you can do- which is probably why the fear of losing it may be thriving deep inside those who’ve earned a spot with the ultimate Salaried and Benefited Position.
What I’ve come to notice about some of those that are content in their 9–5 is that they aren’t zombies or parts of The Machine- they’re just fearful. Perhaps they’re so numb with fear that they don’t realize it’s suffocating them. Maybe it’s not.. but it sure looks that way. When you find a partner, reproduce, and a way to support yourselves- you’ve got to be out of your bloody mind to risk those very natural human successes for something as silly as the desire to create something special.
But have you ever read a quote about fear before?
“Fear is what happens when you leave your comfort zone.”
“Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live.”
Google it. See how many people connect conquering fear with that feeling of coming alive.
Remember when you were ten and you conquered a big water slide or ordered off the menu all by yourself? Remember how empowering that was? If that resonates with you, it may be time to check in with what your Grown Up fears maybe and pass the thought of what it could feel like to conquer those.
I just signed up for my first desk job (or “got offered the job!”). It’s wonderful, actually. The work I’m doing is meaningful and surrounds ideas I believe in and I feel good at it. But I’ve been deeply unsettled with the notion that with this job security, I’ll get a heaping spoonful of the fear that I’ll loose it, all that comes with this “real job.”
I have a long list of things I want to do in this world and I plan on being fully alive for them. I have circus classes to take, friends and family to meet and love, and art to create. I’ve got some big dreams and a backpack full of things I believe in that I don’t care to toss out. This job is a vehicle to those things, but only a vehicle. It is not my ultimate destination and I hope I’m brave enough to leave it to live in a van, if that’s what my heart’s feeling at some point down the road.
Yesterday at gymnastics I was attempting a skill that is annoyingly challenging, and I had a thought. In this particular skill, there’s a certain point in the air where your brain does not feel comfortable. A point where your body has to relinquish control and trust that physics will carry you and it’s okay to be vulnerable for a quarter second. In fact, that moment of vulnerability where you could fall is critical to the technique of the skill. If you don’t push that angle where your brain starts to panic, the skill simply won’t work. If you do, you may fall, but it’s sure as hell the only way to conquer it. In a way, you have to chase the fear. Go after that crux because there’s no way around it if you want to move beyond it.
Thus, my new retirement plan has me weary, but perhaps that sense of weariness is exactly where I need to be now to get to where I want to be next. I have a stable job, a new place to live, and after-work activities I love. I’m working damn hard to ensure that those luxuries don’t create a fear of losing them. Because I care a whole awful lot about creating things that I need my passions wide awake for- I need to be alive and well. I think it’s a matter of keeping that consciousness.
*this is certainly not a claim that all people in a 9–5 are fearful, if you’ve skirted that trap- congrats, you are the lucky ones.
