How do you experience passion?
There are a lot of things that one could be passionate about: work, a website, a person and much much more. For me, I would call it a kind of intensity. I am totally focused on what I am doing. It feels important. Almost like it is about saving a life. It is easiest for me to be passionate about another person. I feel like I get some kind of energy that I imagine as a sort of blue force field reaching out demanding that the other person return that focus. It feels like a power.
When my focus is on some task, or some presentation to a group, or about an issue that is really important to me, the words fly out and I can’t even begin to make my mouth or my fingers move fast enough to capture all the thoughts. Instead, I just rely on this sense of intensity that somehow conveys the depth of my feeling about a subject. It’s like there’s some neon sign over my head flashing, “this matters!” “This Matters!” over and over. Sometimes it seems to shock people. They pull back to look at me fully in my face and say with disbelief that it is actually possible, “You really care!?!”
For me, it’s an “of course I do. How could you think otherwise?” But I gather that people aren’t used to others actually caring about them, or about an idea. Sometimes I imagine that my passion is strong enough to heal people. To show them that they do matter.
How does it feel when you are passionate? What kind of power does it bring you? Do you cultivate it? Does it scare you? When you see it in other people, how does it affect you?
Observing members:
0
Composing members:
0
9 Answers
I’ll focus on non-relationship passion. I would agree that it’s sort of an intensity. Certainly with particular subjects or issues, there is a rush of energy and a flow of verbalization, but that doesn’t happen too often for me.
What’s most common in my case is my passion for art. When I pick up a paintbrush, a piece of charcoal, colored pencils… nearly any medium… I feel an inexplicable warmth and energy course through my body. I smile without realizing it. I’m thrust into the most perfect tranquility, but proceed with a certain fervor. Time dissolves and I disconnect from my surroundings, only to become part of my subject. Worries leave my mind, and instead I concern myself with the task at hand. It’s an intuitive movement, not something forced. What I find most astonishing is the all encompassing feeling of security.
I don’t think it’s so much that I regard what I’m doing as important, or even necessarily meaningful to anyone beyond myself, but I feel fulfilled, whole, entirely content, when I engage in any artistic activity, and it’s the best feeling in the world.
Encountering another person with just as much passion only heightens my own. Sure, there’s an easier flow of communication on the verbal level, but it also feels like there’s some kind of invisible frequency to which we’re both attuned , that we amplify each other’s excitement and creativity. We resonate together. Finding those kinds of people results in a refreshment of energy, a strange rejuvenation, and a whole new wave of ideas. It’s beautiful.
Passion: Expression, Precision, Perfection.
Passion is something, at least personally, I don’t have to think about. Whatever is making you passionate at that moment is natural with who you are at the core. Though our passions may be different, when I meet someone who has the same passion I do about animals, books, or other things I hold important in my life, you seem to have an enexplicable understanding of the other person’s perspective even though you may not know anything else about them. It’s comforting :)
I experience a lot as you’ve described. The upside is truly being able to affect another person positively, joy feeding joy and feeling it come back at you even more intensely. The downside is the same passion can overwhelm and crush even if your intent is positive.
When I’m passionate about something, which honestly is a lot, it’s a physical sensation that washes over me. I feel connected to everything by strings, much like a giant spiderweb, but the strings are invisible. But it’s like I can feel life pulsing along these lines, much like a heartbeat, reinforcing the connection. When I’m like that, I feel like I look physically different, too. I don’t know if this is actually the case, but it feels like my eyes must be conveying the intensity I’m feeling in the moment. It’s hard for me to imagine that I can hide my passion in any way… That if people look into my eyes, they must be able to see it. How could they not, when I feel like I’m burning so strongly from the inside?
And when I’m actually passionate about another person, what they’re going through, what they’re saying… It feels like we’re the only ones in the world. Like everything we say in that moment will be understood by the other, no matter what. It’s still accompanied by that invisible heartbeat and those pulsing strings.
That’s the best I can describe what I feel…
I have had a couple people tell me that when I start talking about neuroscience, I light up and my whole demeanor changes. I don’t notice it myself, but I guess that’s what passion looks like from the outside.
My neurotransmitters are hormones going wild. There’s warmth. And tingling, and throbbing, and buzzing sensations.
I think passion is best felt in a kiss.
Answer this question 
Composing members:
0
