Passion

This post will begin with something I started writing during rehearsal tonight as we were talking about love, and then morph into things I've been thinking about love since that conversation as I've been reading Saint Augustine's Confessions.

All we need is love. We need to love and we need to be loved. If we love and are loved, both in reference to people and work, we can create and succeed and do what we love. Love is something deep within us and others. Sometimes our love is closer to someone else's because over the course of time we have gathered the same understandings. Other times we must dig deeper to find that love, within the universe in ourselves. That is why we are all connected. That is why I must love everyone.

What is it to study love? Can studying the history of the understanding of love help us in our need to love now? Should we think about love, or just love?

This is our moment in time. We must love, now. And how we love now is naturally informed by love of the ages. It is inherent in being a person.

In Ruben's class, we were given this quote:

Have you ever wanted something so badly it possessed you through the night and through the day until you finally get it - then you realize it wasn't what you wanted after all. And then those same sickly feelings go and attach themselves to something or somebody new - and the whole thing starts all over again. The only true freedom is freedom from our desires. And the only true happiness this way lies.

I'll put into conversation with that one of my favorite quotes:

One must not lose desires. They are mighty stimulants to creativeness, to love, and to long life.

I was thinking about whether a desire is less valuable once it's fulfilled. For me, there is a desire to maintain whatever desire I fulfilled. I desired for four years to attend NYU. That desire was fulfilled, and I'm still here, and it is what I wanted after all, and it's still an amazing thing. More amazing that I expected.

Is love only a joy if it's requited? Now I am inclined to say no, but I expect my answer would have been different before four months ago. And to be honest, I would say loving Jack has not been a joy for the last nearly-three years now, though I am trying hard to change that.

I worked with a group (including Colleen) on a project inspired by that first quote, and we talked a lot about passion and obsession. I think we agreed that passion can destroy, if it is an obsession that possesses you as the quote says, but I argued that without passion, life is meaningless and pointless. Particularly as an artist, I need to be passionate about whatever I'm doing. I'm constantly told by teachers (or at least one teacher) to find something to obsess over. Find something I care about. And as I've said previously on this blog, I know no way to live other than passionately. Whatever I feel about something, I feel it intensely. I love fiercely and I hurt deeply. The opposite of love isn't hate, it's apathy.

I have been thinking about God's love over the last hour or so, but I think that is a post for another time as I need to either get back to reading or go to bed. May you find love in your dreams, and may you find your dreams in your love.