Passion is the great human driver.  Passion has driven humanity to great achievement and great destruction.  Only when strong passion is accompanied with equally strong compassion and an unyielding intellectual honesty will the outcome be both great and good. 

 I am reasonably certain that if you are reading this then you have read much about the great misdeeds committed by those who have let passion dominate over reason and compassion.  There is nothing further I can add.  However, you might not have read Eric Hoffer’s books, “The Passionate State of Mind,” and ”The Mind of the True Believer.” These are both short, easy to read and very sensible analyses of the effect of unreasoned passion.  It is essential that we never fall into such behavior and that you clearly understand the nature of those who do.  They can be very powerful and they cause great harm.

 We must not, however, abandon passion.  It is essential.  It is what drives us and everyone else.  It just needs to be complemented with compassion and both need to be subject to the scrutiny of uncompromising intellectual honestly.

 You can influence your passions.  Passions are the result of specific brain functions, largely in the limbic system.  We all have within us many possible personalities.  We are in fact made up of many personalities.  Under the control of reason, we can determine the activities we engage in that will develop the personalities and passions we desire to evolve and nurture over others.

 Readings:

1.       “The Passionate State of Mind and Other Aphorisms” by Eric Hoffer, 1955, Harper and Row

2.       “The Mind of the True Believer” by Eric Hoffer.

3.       Novels that have stories with characters that have passion, compassion, and knowledge.

4.       History written in such a way that it shows the passion of people.

 Exercises:

1. Make a list of the things you are most passionate about.  For each one ask the following questions
   1. Is this passion connected with a specific belief? If so, have you ever questioned the validity of the belief? If not, why not? If not, question it now.
   2. What do I want from my behavior associated with this passion? Do I use my intellect to get what I want or are my actions driven by my passion? This is a very difficult question.  It gets right to the point of who is in charge - your passion or your reason.  Do you ever have an occasion where afterwards you say, “Why did I do that? I should have thought about doing ______ instead.  Would it, under the cool light of reason, been better to do something else to get what you wanted?
   3. Do I use my passions to motivate me to put forth the very best effort I can to get what I want?
2. Repeat the above with someone else in mind.  Use what you know about the person and see if you can figure out how they may answer.
3. The Parts Party (I was first introduced to this concept in the Change Shop by Weinberg.)
   1. Make a list of 3 to 6 people whom you greatly admire; the heroes in your life..  These can be personally known.  They can historical.  They can be fictional from a novel or your own creation.  They can be alive or dead.  Now list the abilities, passions and personality characteristics of these people.  You do not need to be precise, just write a few words about each.
   2. Make a list of 3 to 6 people you detest or loath; the villains in your life.  Write a few words about each. 
   3. Now the next step is the valuable one but you must not read it until you have actually written your two lists.  I think it may be important enough that I am not going to tell you the next step just yet.  So make your two lists.

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(C) 2005-2014 Wayne M. Angel.  All rights reserved.