The Broke and Passionate

It’s the conventional way to live: go to school, get a job and be a person. Frankly, the three of them can be done in any order but some are more imperative than the others. Whatever your delight may be, to live – and not just exist - in today’s society, you have to do at least one of those three.

Many at times, getting a job is a result of going to school and sometimes, these two stem from knowing who you are as a person. So it’s probably more important to be a person than to get a degree or chase an office. To be a person, you have to tick off the following boxes.

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be human

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be an entity

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be alive

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don’t listen to Taylor Swift

Being human and being an entity are similar terms but used in divers contexts. They almost mean the same thing and whatever they mean is subjective. Being alive, on the other hand, is less ambiguous.

Being alive means being full of life. To be full of life, you have to be active in some sense, be it at the cellular level or as a full-blooded organism. An active person is aware of their engagement in an activity. All things being equal, to be a better person, you have to be better at an activity and if there’s any sentiment that fuels progress, it’s passion.

Let’s track back a bit:

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to live, you have to be a person

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to be a person, you have to be active

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to be a better person, you have to be passionate

Passion fuels it all. It’s the facilitator, the incentive, and the sustenance. Passion is a goading. Knowing this, I’m left perplexed as to why we constantly ignore our passion in pursuit of deeper pockets. Why do people regard being wealthy over being passionate? Is a broke and passionate artist a dead person? Don’t answer that.

Last week, I asked my professor why he decided to be a biologist when he knew there’s little green in it.

‘I’ll be dead otherwise’ he replied and then went on to preach about the relevance of biological sciences in our society.

For so long, the prospect of getting bigger paychecks has been an underlying parameter for deciding one’s career. This prospect supersedes one’s passion. Many at times, passions are minimized to hobbies. For the lucky few, your passion may be in such high demand that you’re able to receive ridiculous paychecks but a great deal of working class individuals – who are well educated and learned individuals - are not passionate about their work. That has a domino effect on economic productivity but that’s a different story.

If whatever worth doing is worth doing well, then we should be passionate (to a considerable degree) about whatever we are doing. Just as you can’t cheat life, you can’t fake passion.

We don’t get to choose our birthdate, parents, who we fall in love with and what we are passionate about. The heart wants what it wants. If we don't follow suit, we'll be dead inside - a state my professor was keen to avoid. So why belittle your passion? It’s what keeps you alive.

Is a broke and passionate artist a dead person? Now, answer that.

“It is the soul's duty to be loyal to its own desires. It must abandon itself to its master passion.”-Rebecca West

- Tobi Nifesi