Is Passion Serendipitously Discovered or Painstakingly Constructed?
1–10 of 15 posts
Re: Is Passion Serendipitously Discovered or Painstakingly Constructed?
#2You could rephrase the whole article, "Just do anything enough to get good at it. It doesn't matter what you want or like."
My response: "yes, it really does."
Re: Is Passion Serendipitously Discovered or Painstakingly Constructed?
#3You could rephrase the whole article, "Just do anything enough to get good at it. It doesn't matter what you want or like." My response: "yes, it really does."
Agreed (sorta). I think achieving a certain level of proficiency is a necessary condition (not a sufficient one). However, as noted in the article, sometimes reaching a particular level of proficiency creates the "I like this" emotion.
Re: Is Passion Serendipitously Discovered or Painstakingly Constructed?
#4You could rephrase the whole article, "Just do anything enough to get good at it. It doesn't matter what you want or like." My response: "yes, it really does."
That's not an accurate summary. What he's saying is that you can pick any of your superficial interests (the things that you want or like) and construct a passion from it by getting really good at it. The message is for those people who have many interests but are either trying to figure out which of these interests contains their passion or they're waiting for a flash of insight that tells them to drop everything and do a 180.
In short, his point is that you should stop trying to discover your passion and start creating it.
Re: Is Passion Serendipitously Discovered or Painstakingly Constructed?
#5You could rephrase the whole article, "Just do anything enough to get good at it. It doesn't matter what you want or like." My response: "yes, it really does."
Agreed (sorta). I think achieving a certain level of proficiency is a necessary condition (not a sufficient one). However, as noted in the article, sometimes reaching a particular level of proficiency creates the "I like this" emotion.
Sure, but "sometimes" without any particular predictive ability isn't very helpful.
I suppose he could be saying "before you done something for awhile, you probably won't like it." That would be a statement with more content. It's a different argument than the one he made, though.
Re: Is Passion Serendipitously Discovered or Painstakingly Constructed?
#6You could rephrase the whole article, "Just do anything enough to get good at it. It doesn't matter what you want or like." My response: "yes, it really does."
That's not an accurate summary. What he's saying is that you can pick any of your superficial interests (the things that you want or like) and construct a passion from it by getting really good at it. The message is for those people who have many interests but are either trying to figure out which of these interests contains their passion or they're waiting for a flash of insight that tells them to drop everything an…
"What he's saying is that you can pick any of your superficial interests (the things that you want or like) and construct a passion from it by getting really good at it."
Yes. That's what he saying. That you can pick any of those interests, and that it doesn't matter which.
He's doing that partially by redefining "passion" to mean "something you've done long enough to be good at it", which is strongly at odds with the colloquial definition, which involves liking it.
Re: Is Passion Serendipitously Discovered or Painstakingly Constructed?
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not an accurate summary. What he's saying is that you can pick any of your superficial interests (the things that you want or like) and construct a passion from it by getting really good at it. The message is for those people who have many interests but are either trying to figure out which of these interests contains their passion or they're waiting for a flash of insight that tells them to drop everything an…
"What he's saying is that you can pick any of your superficial interests (the things that you want or like) and construct a passion from it by getting really good at it." Yes. That's what he saying. That you can pick any of those interests, and that it doesn't matter which. He's doing that partially by redefining "passion" to mean "something you've done long enough to be good at it", which is strongly at odds with th…
His redefinition of passion is:
Passion: The feeling that arises from having mastered a skill that earns you recognition and rewards.
He did not toss out the "like" or even the "love" from the idea. The feeling is the exact same. What he changed is how that feeling comes about.
If you have an interest in something, that means you like it at least enough to explore it further. What he is saying is that if you like something, you can work at it and get to the point where you've turned a simple "like" into a "passion".
Re: Is Passion Serendipitously Discovered or Painstakingly Constructed?
#8You could rephrase the whole article, "Just do anything enough to get good at it. It doesn't matter what you want or like." My response: "yes, it really does."
My response to your response: "no, it doesn't."
You have to progress beyond the initial period of total incompetence, where nothing is fun. Your guitar strings buzz mutely, you keep dropping your hand and your opponent punches you in the face, and javac keeps yelling at you about "array index out of bounds." After that, though, the increasing success in the activity becomes a positive feedback loop, increasing your desire to practice it. The end result is what any reasonable person would call passion.
Re: Is Passion Serendipitously Discovered or Painstakingly Constructed?
#9Resonates nicely with something Cormac McCarthy said in a recent interview.
Someone asked Flannery O'Connor why she wrote, and she said, "Because I was good at it." And I think that's the right answer. If you're good at something it's very hard not to do it.
Re: Is Passion Serendipitously Discovered or Painstakingly Constructed?
#10I find it hardest to be passionate about my work when I'm doing mundane, uninteresting work. No job involves doing something interesting and challenging at all times. If I was 10x better at my job, it wouldn't improve how I felt about doing mundane work. In fact, I might detest it more because I would feel like my time could be spent doing higher-level work.