Roxanne Appleby
Masterpiece
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2005
- Posts
- 11,231
Fem's "what makes you?" thread has everyone groaning, and I've wondered, what is "the groan," anyway? It's so intense and sharp, an exquisite pleasure/pain, a consuming demand welling up from some deep, mysterious center - "I want!" You wish it would go away but never want it to and look for more.
Naturally most of the time one can't do anything about it (without being arrested right after), and in consequence I've tried to cope by "intellectualizing" the experience of it. That doesn't work of course, and I've concluded it's silly to even try: This is pure lizard brain stuff, and not subject to intellectual understanding (other than antiseptic scientist-talk that is completely disconnected from grasping the essence of the experience itself).
Part of the definition of passion is that it's an experience that happens to us, rather than something we choose. I don't like being the subject of a force I don't choose - but I never want it to go away, either! Ah, the mysteries of life.
Naturally most of the time one can't do anything about it (without being arrested right after), and in consequence I've tried to cope by "intellectualizing" the experience of it. That doesn't work of course, and I've concluded it's silly to even try: This is pure lizard brain stuff, and not subject to intellectual understanding (other than antiseptic scientist-talk that is completely disconnected from grasping the essence of the experience itself).
Part of the definition of passion is that it's an experience that happens to us, rather than something we choose. I don't like being the subject of a force I don't choose - but I never want it to go away, either! Ah, the mysteries of life.
