Let me preface this piece by saying that this is not a lecture for anyone reading this site, nor something that you need even take seriously. It's simply something (a theory, if you will) that I've come up with over the course of the past couple months and while it may not relate to your life, I think that it certainly relates to mine. It's sort of a companion piece to the entry that I wrote last week, and yet it's freestanding as well.

The crux of the next few paragraphs can all be pretty much boiled down to one word; passion. It's a word that has a dictionary definition of, "a strong emotion such as love or hate." It's a pretty simple word in a technical sense and even has a fairly clear definition when it comes down to things, but like many other words in the English language, pinning down definites after that gets a little more tricky.

I guess the first thing I should mention is that I've found that in life, everybody should have a passion. Whether it's reading, writing, photography, sports, animals, your job, or anything else, everyone should have something that they have a strong desire for. I think everyone has met someone who simply doesn't really have anything to talk about or can't seem to get excited about anything in life, and seeing that sort of thing makes me sad. Really.

When I think about those whom I'm closest with (and those whom I'm attracted to most), they're people who can talk articulately (much more so than I can) about the things that move them. Even when I sometimes feel like a conversation may be heading in a stale direction, they'll throw something out and completely surprise me. Perhaps that's why I try to surround myself with people like this, because it's in hopes that little sparks of the zeal with which they speak so elegantly and excitedly about will rub off on me. It's like stealing little bits of their aura, but they have enough for everyone to go around.

At this point, you may be asking yourself just what my point is, and I must say that I'm getting to it. Tying together the relationship element from last weeks entry to this weeks entry on passion, I think that the main point of this piece is that even when you're in a relationship, everyone needs to keep something completely separate from that relationship that they're passionate about. If that doesn't make me any sense, try to let me explain.

There was a time in my life when I wasn't very passionate about much at all. There were things like writing and art that filled up my time and made me happy, but there was nothing that really drove me beyond any of my limits in thought. When I was through with one project, I moved onto the next and then the next after that, never really reflecting on why I was doing anything or trying to create something better than I was currently.

It was also around this time that I dated different people, and because I didn't have something that I was truly passionate about, I poured most of that passion into the other person (whether they knew it or not). When I was in a relationship, I'd think about it much more than anything else, and even when I wasn't with the person I would wonder what was going on between us and with our relationship. It wasn't only a positive passion, but one that would often fuel jealousy and other things that weren't exactly constructive.

Then, if that relationship ended, I again had nothing. Everything that I'd poured my passion into for whatever period of time was gone. While I still had the memories of it, all the time and effort that I'd put in was gone and because I didn't have anything separate from the relationship, I'd sort of wander without a direction for my inner fire until I started up in a new relationship (again, this part ties into last weeks piece.). Every time my self-confidence would get built-up, it would later get shattered and each time I'd be back at square one.

Now, the solution to this, the point of this essay, and something I think/hope I've figured out for myself is that I need to be passionate about something. Over the course of the past year or so, it has been this website and all that it entails (writing, photography, self-reflection, bla-bla). It's a separate entity for me to direct myself towards, and I'd like to think that if I ever get into another relationship, it would be something that I'd still spend a fair amount of time working on. At that point, it would be a sort of spliting of my passion reservoir (if you will) and directing it both into the relationship and the site (or at least elements of it). Granted, I may not be able to do all the things I do with it now, but it's not like tons of people would be missing the work anyway.

Again speaking in a future-uncertain tense, if I were ever to get into a relationship and that relationship were to end, I think that still having the one thing that I'm passionate about would prevent me from falling as far as I used to without an outside interest that made me happy. All endings of relationships obviously suck, but I think that having that one thing I had continued to create (and then could continue to create, perhaps even driven on more by the fuel of sadness) could provide sort of a cushion from the fall of an ending relationship.

Again, all this is speculative and you may be laughing at me right about now for saying it all, but I think that everyone needs to find something they're passionate about and continue with it and/or evolve it even while in a relationship. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for putting all your heart and soul into a relationship, but the key is also doing little things in there that make you happy independently as well. If nothing else, it will not only give you one more thing that you're happy about.

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