Artsmonkey Blog

And what started this train of thought?

Our government wants us to get out there and spend money to create a fiscal stimulus and calm the “potentially disastrous impact of the recession”. Let us be humble with our needs and our actions, let’s ensure that grand gestures are born of passion and tempered by wisdom and the obssessive, blundering behaviours that fuel our greed and selfishness are managed. Before we self-implode let’s look out for our neighbours, are they warm, will they be alone at Christmas? Do they need someone to listen to them? The man on the street begging may be surviving on a cocktail of drugs and alcohol but maybe a hot drink and a sandwich may remind him it’s not a ‘them and us’ situation and that now is the time to let in the professional support that’s out there. Does that make you recoil? It does me,  I’m rubbish at being a better person. Small steps, small acts of compassion, whatever it is, whatever you can offer. Hasn’t that got to be better than being a part of the world as represented by national news?

Steps slowly off soapbox… and falls over

Obsession however is all consuming, it destroys like the volcano and then implodes on itself. Is it obsession that drives us as a world? Obsession and greed that hand in hand walk through the world burning, pillaging to feed it’s need, it’s hunger? Here in the UK the news today is full of suicide bombers (fuelled by faith and driven by irrational belief) war atrocities (fuelled by greed, driven by hunger) retribution (fuelled by pain driven by pride) and the world-wide economic downturn (fuelled by greed driven by obsession?)

So what, I hear you yawn from the back row. Well, whilst we talk of managing our obsessions, what of humility? Increasingly people in the public eye are struggling to be humble and to say sorry, whether it’s the BBC over the Russell-Brand phonecall debacle or Hackney Local Authority over the death of Baby P. or the crush of people in job centers.

Woke up this Monday with questions:

When does passion become obsession? What tips a person over that razor sharp edge from say, admiring a celebrity into an obsessive need to know every detail of their life, search out every available photo and become a pseudo authority on the ‘object of their obsessions’ analyse every public move. What is the moment when a dispassionate distance is melted by the heat of a need to know more, pouring through magazines, internet sites, forums and chat rooms for more detail, more glimpses?

Is it the fine line between passion and obsession that draws and excites some people and scares other people off? Passion can be very attractive but unrestricted it can be overwhelming, off-putting. The strength, the voracity of the passion can be volcanic and destroy whatever stands in it’s path.

People with passion exist in all walks of life whether its passion for sport or technology or maths or history, art, furniture, houses, people…. the list stretches on into infinity. The important thing is the passion itself, that fuels and drives the possessor onwards needing to share, to convert, to inspire, to draw in, to recruit. Often with passion comes vision, sometimes people buy into it, sometimes they run from it. From Evangelism to mission to belief to unadulterated enjoyment, passion adds colour, excitement and focus to our lives. S/He who dares, wins?