Pathwalking 42
What is passion?
Passion is a key aspect of Pathwalking.
Dictionary.com defines passion as:
noun
1. any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling, as love or hate.
2. strong amorous feeling or desire; love; ardor.
3. strong sexual desire; lust.
4. an instance or experience of strong love or sexual desire.
5. a person toward whom one feels strong love or sexual desire.
6. a strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm, or desire for anything: a passion for music.
7. the object of such a fondness or desire: Accuracy became a passion with him.
8. an outburst of strong emotion or feeling: He suddenly broke into a passion of bitter words.
9. violent anger.
10. the state of being acted upon or affected by something external, especially something alien to one’s nature or one’s customary behavior ( contrasted with action).
Most people associate passion with meanings 2-5. However, passion is a deeper, stronger emotion. Passion is powerful. Passion compels, passion is about drive.
Why do we choose to walk our own path? Because we are driven to want something more than the ordinary. Because we want something awesome, we want more for our lives than the ho-hum every-day. We want to make choices for what and how our lives will be.
This is where is comes down to passion. There is something, sometimes tangible, sometimes not, but something that spurs us to want to walk our own path. We want to have control over our destiny, and the choices before us.
Passion, I believe, is what makes the difference between those who choose to walk a path, and those who don’t. Passion is the thing that separates the doers from the dreamers. Passion is what defines a person who wants to live their life to the fullest, rather than let their life live them.
I want to share MY passion with you. My passion is the written word. I LOVE to write. Writing is my creative outlet. Writing is how I best express myself. I write these blog posts weekly, I write occasional topical rants to the blog, I write works of fantasy, sci-fi and fiction. I have a small business focused on writing for other businesses. I am intrigued by the ways other writers I admire write, and I keep up with them on Twitter and Facebook and Google+. Words are my stock and trade.
What do I want from this? I want to be a published author. I want a following like Neil Gaiman or Paulo Coelho or George RR Martin. I want to be influential, respected, and WELL READ. I want people excited when my books are coming out.
I have published two short stories in anthologies thus far. And the single greatest compliment I received about this came from a woman who has been a customer at the shop I work at. She told me not only how much she enjoyed my story – but more than that, she had persuaded her 14 year old nephew, who is not a reader, to read my story. He proceeded, she told me, to go on and read the rest of the stories in the anthology. She thanked me for getting her nephew to read.
THAT is what I am most after. THAT is the affect I want to have on the world. I want to open more minds to more possibilities, open up imaginations, I want people to feel the joy in reading the I feel in writing. This is my passion. This is my dream.
Creating these Pathwalking posts is a part of that. I write these in part for myself, because seeing my thoughts on the screen makes them more real than leaving them just in my head. I write these in part for YOU, because I want to share my passion for life, and I want YOU to explore and feel your own passion. We who live our lives with passion are not so alone as it might seem sometimes – and that is why I place these before you every week.
Nope, this is not an easy path I have chosen. But I am working every day to enrich this path, and to live my life with passion. Certainly there are good days and bad, but I think having this within me drives me to do more.
I am in pursuit of my passion, and constantly on the lookout for ways to reach the goal of this path, and begin the paths that will follow it. Without this desire, without the passion I feel towards the goal, I don’t think I’d even be able to see the path to walk it. But here I am, making the journey.
What are you passionate about?
This is the forty-second entry in my series. These weekly posts are specifically about walking along the path of life, and my desire to make a difference in this world along the way. Thank you for joining me.
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