apassionato

"Passion, it lies in all of us, sleeping, waiting... It speaks to us... guides us... Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love, the clarity of hatred, and the ecstasy of grief. It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion maybe we'd know some kind of peace, but we would be hollow -- empty rooms shuttered and dank. Without passion we'd be truly dead." (BtVS S2)

Sometimes I think Angelus' thoughts on it says it best. 

There are a number of things I am passionate about, but only one thing I love. Love is stronger than passion and rightly so; this seems an easy enough concept for people to accept, but even as it may be, passion is not something to be taken lightly. To have a passion for something is to be tied to it. In some way it is tethered to your very being and essential to your personage. For some reason, the word 'passion' is used much in the same lax way as the word 'love'. I feel this dilutes the intended meaning for the words. There are so many words in the English language and yet these words are rather limiting. Perhaps that is why over time 'passion' and 'love' have become interchangeable. My instinct tells me that they are closely related and it has been my experience that it is very much the case. Maybe because love, for someone like me, implies that I am also passionate for the thing I love. In this case, a person -- another being. However it is not a bi-conditional statement; P implies Q but not vice versa. Passion does not necessarily imply love. It may be that there is much confusion because, for many, it is sufficient. So in that case, it is sufficient to say that they love x because they are passionate for x. And so the two are never separated and they become wishy-washy things that elude people and continue to plague them by dancing around in the haze. It casts a provocative shadow and the glimpses are hard to grasp, but all the same are breathtaking too. I think maybe that is the obsession with such things. They seem a bit unattainable. There is need for the word 'passion', I think, and need for the separation. It represents something very distinct. People have forgotten what it was or have not been educated otherwise, yet still they continue to have passions. They say they love those things, and mayhap they do, but passions in the present age are equivalent to mere strong curiosities and inclinations. 

In simple terms: Passion is fashion nowadays.

So who are those of true passions, pure and undiluted? This I ask myself. It should be easy to distinguish the genuine from the spurious, though many cannot tell. Sometimes it is almost a palpable aura and one can feel it seeping from the very pores of a passionate man; likewise, the apocryphal fanatics of garish whims air a stench that reeks of burning plastic -- the smell of bandwagons. Still, other times it is not so apparent. And it becomes a game much like the one the 'academics' play with the 'intellects'. The world of passions becomes this gaudy masquerade with masks and feathers and pearls and the smell of bodies jostling about one another on the dance floor. And when you look closely enough you find that you cannot remove some of their masks. Oh the shock! That their masks are not masks at all but the real form of their faces! At first it seems an odd juxtaposition to the normality of the elegant gowns and handsome tuxedos. It might be that they were not born with these features, but they seemed to have developed them, grown into them, and now it is a part of them. It seems to me that passions can be very much like this. And then you come to one whose mask rips off and the cheap elastic snaps with a decisive sharpness, you find yourself taken aback and disappointed. You see their face suddenly as this blank piece of round flesh and it repulses you to the point of disgust. The 'deformity' of the maskless is preferable to the shapelessness of the paraders.

How does one define passion? Do you at all? It strikes me as one of those 'immeasurables'. Take for instance my affinity for music: It has become one of my most defining traits and grown into my strongest passion, only second to my passion linked with my love. For a long while I was under the impression that I loved music. It was a fine assumption actually, until I found what true love was. However, this put into perspective the profundity of music even in the role of passion instead of love. In truth, it has strengthened what music is and means to me in part because I have found its proper function. My passion for music has afforded me some of my most precious memories and offered me a venue through which I may grow, create, and nurture my potential. This is extremely similar to what love also can do, but again there is a major distinction. My passion is intimate and personal and inward. It is that of which my cave is constructed where the tyrannies of the world cannot touch me. And though I may share my passion completely with my love -- because all that is mine and me is always his and us -- it feels it is very much mine. I know not how to phrase this accurately. It seems the ideas and conceptions I hold of my passion are conflicting, but the tensions are important. It is burning and strong, yet I possess the impulse to be protective of it as it is fragile and delicate. I suppose I have this inclination because music is close to me. Self-preservation at work, though not in any direct sense. It is a subtle instinct. I suppose I would find myself a little lost without it because it is so intricately twined into my person. I think one might find there is music in the double-helix. I bet my atoms move in rhythm. I do not presume to know which rhythm.

I am asking the wrong questions it seems. That's the trouble with words. You never know quite how to ask and when someone tries to answer you they hardly ever know what you're asking. Words are not always enough. But I am still just skirting around all the things I am trying to say. That is one of the reasons I chose music and music chose me. I have no affinity for words, but I know how to communicate through music. I am freed from the limitations of my feeble vocabulary. It is in my music that I am privileged to find passion itself. And perchance while listening to the music I will come across some great stroke of genius. Or maybe it will reveal itself as all having been my genius just waiting to be realized. It might be this was the reason for my musings on passion. I have been feeling it all building up inside of me, the music just swirling around in my head itching to get out. It puts me rather off balance after years of being immersed in the musical world. Now, choosing to step out of it, I am restless and have not the slightest sometimes with what to do with myself.

Musicians cease when there is no more music left in them.

It seems easier to just ask the stars. They too are on fire and may relate to my plights and perhaps because they have no need for my language, they will know what it is I inquire. But even here, in this realm and on this earth, I find that some of my best moments are grounded in my passions. It might be accurate to say that most of them have been. And here is why a separation between love and passion is necessary: it acknowledges the weight of passion without the ballast of love's magnitude. Do not mistake me. Love in no way is diminished by this particular type of sundering.

Both are extreme, sometimes dangerous, powerful affirmations of life.