In Praise of passion

It isn’t rocket science but it lies at the heart of every invention, discovery, creativity itself. The unswerving, unwavering, uncompromising need to feed one’s inner calling. What this craving consists of is immaterial. But that it drives one to delicious distraction is essential.

For us it’s always been beauty. Fashion is the chosen medium but our worship of beauty seeps into every area of our lives. We are enslaved by and absolute suckers for it.  Passion is a highly inconvenient thing. It destroys any hope you have of a normal existence. And thank God for it.

Because normal means average and average should never be the standard for anyone.

The thing with me. I have an opinion on just about everything. Everything moves me. In many directions. Passion is something that comes naturally to the creative mind. If we weren’t ‘affected’, we wouldn’t have anything to channel into form. People often wax lyrical about what inspires a collection or a single outfit. The truth is that life in all its madness and mayhem is the inspiration.

It’s a constant bombardment of stimuli upon the senses. Stuff we hate. Stuff we love. That which angers us, other things that leave us cold. Life is what I get high on. From politics to cinema, food to fashion, all of it leaves an imprint. Mind, body, and soul. And from that twisted mass of imagery and emotions comes everything. To feel is to be alive. To be alive is to create.

Passion makes the impossible within reach. It’s the bee in your bonnet that won’t stop buzzing and keeps stinging. It’s the no you scream when a silent yes would be the prudent answer. It’s the mother of all, birthplace of do or die, risk-taking that allows you to not merely push the envelope but also break the bar. It is both the madness and the method. We are helpless when it comes to creativity. It isn’t a choice but rather a compulsion. Deeply ingrained, in that primal part of us that will yield only to itself. We could have kept it simple. But that would have meant giving up who we are. We don’t believe in shortcuts or shortchanging our dreams. It is alien to our psyches. If you seek to create the extraordinary, then the attitude has to be “whatever it takes”. This is the magic pill. Our sheer doggedness, our inability to be rational when it comes to our work, our blind belief in jumping sans parachute into unchartered territory is the very reason we are blessed to have achieved lasting success.

You see the effects of a lack of passion all around you in everything and everyone who is mediocre. The settlers, the perpetually uninspired, the constantly dissatisfied are everywhere, afflicted with the Pandemic of Blah.

‘I’m so bored” always translates into “I am boring”. That insipid creature you can’t wait to escape from at a cocktail party or the uninspiring colleague who just clocks in and out like an automaton.

They are deathly because quite frankly, they are dead inside. Without passion we all are. Find your’s.  And surrender to it…