Is Passion Limited?

[Vllad]

Last week around the same time we were discussing "Is Art Limited" I was watching a Monty Python documentory on there life story as a group.

Towards the end of the documentory there was a common theme among all of them that I have heard before.

John Cleese I think said it best. "While I do small projects from time to time to keep busy I am not as funny as I used to be. At my age you already have heard all of the jokes and quite frankly they just aren't that funny anymore".

Others of the group said pretty much the same thing but in there own way seperately.

I saw another show on about Hippies. When they interviewed some old hippies about what has changed most in there life since the 60's the answers were some what all the same as John Cleese comments.

So the question is:

Does life just continue to repeat itself and the older you get the repeditivness just gets old?


Vllad

[Slamz]

Ask me again in 30 years. By preference, ask me again in 200 years.

All I know is that there always more things that I would like to do than there is time in which to do them. Maybe that changes later. Maybe I learn to play an instrument and the magic goes away and I no longer feel like learning any other instruments. Maybe it just gets hard to get excited about a new 5 year project when you're already 82. I dunno. In every story where there's an immortal character, they almost always complain about how boring and predictable life gets until they just wish they could die. I always suspected that if immortality was an option, it would probably be a good long while before I was bored. I think perhaps it's our own recognition of our mortality that can suck the fun out of some things. Like, if I had a reasonable prospect of another 200 years of good health ahead of me, I'd pick up a new career ASAP. I'd steal Dustie's idea and go buy a ship and run cargo up and down the coast. If it doesn't work out, well hell, I'll still have 195 years ahead of me to try something else. Still have 195 years to settle down with.

When it starts to feel like a race with the clock, priorities start to change. That much I can see already. Very long term projects that I could potentially try sound less interesting to me now than they did when I was 20. Maybe they're still on my list of things I would like to do, but they're further down than they used to be (and things like "save money and retire early while I still have good health" begin to claim the top spot). It's a bit of a demotivator to realize you don't have all the time in the universe ahead of you.



So basically I'm saying I don't think passion is limited, strictly speaking. I think if science stepped forward and told John Cleese and the old hippies that hooray, you're going to be restored to full youth and you'll live for another 500 years, they'd spring right back into full enthusiasm. It's not that passion is limited, it's that life is limited, and as we see ourselves moving closer to the end of the road we're a bit less excited about the journey.

[Slamz]

Incidentally, the idea of repetitiveness ties into one of my core philosophies, which comes from a casual interest in astronomy, which I believe can best be phrased thusly:
"Dude, we're flying through fucking space on a planet at close to 600,000 mph, practically careening around the galaxy. We can't say for sure what's going to happen tomorrow because tomorrow we'll be over 13 million miles away from where we are now. And the crazy bit? We don't even know what most of the universe is made of."

So... predictable? I wish I could live for a million years because there is some crazy shit goin' on round here. Crazy shit! Problem is a lot of it is on a geological scale.

So I think there's passion a-plenty, but we aren't getting enough time to enjoy it all.

Now where is science with my damn immortality? That's what I want to know. Tick, tock, people! Ain't got all day for you to invent a way to transfer my consciousness into an immortal machine!

[Dustie]

I think if you limit yourself to one area, you might get bored, i.e. joke telling and comedy. If you widen your horizons and allow yourself to be a curious and continuous learner, you'll never be bored. How could you be? There's are so many things to learn, do, and explore.

I would tell that Monty Python guys to come work with my dad and I on our endless stream of projects. For example there's the offshore artificial reef project. Or our high altitude real-time wireless camera helium blimp project. Or our tethered under water camera ROV project. Or our dynamic inlet theory/treasure hunting project. Then there's our Civil War archaeological project. Not to mention our solar powered ocean roving side scan sonar robot project. Then there's the highly dangerous Opequon River Zip line project. I'll leave out the more boring farming and botanical projects. I'm not going to even bring up the magnetometer and sub bottom profiler that we're trying to build.

Anway, I think the key might be curiosity. I know my dad has kept his for 60+ years. I hope I can keep mine (and it doesn't get me killed -- we had a close call with the "high swing" rope swing project this summer).

(I mention my dad since he's 65 and still comes up with his share of the ideas).

Edit: I guess to sum up, my theory is that your passion can't be limited to, say, picture frame making. That could get boring (although I have done that too as part of project router)

[Hoofhurr]

This is really no different than the "is art limited" discussion in my mind. If the new no longer excited me and new ideas stopped flowing I would be worried for myself.

[Vllad]

This is really no different than the "is art limited" discussion in my mind. If the new no longer excited me and new ideas stopped flowing I would be worried for myself.

The difference between this discussion and the "Art is Limited" discussion is this one is internal, the art discussion is external. They are similiar though.

I totally agree with what Slamz is saying (or at least I used to) but now that 50 is approaching I find it more and more difficult to keep the kind of passion for a multitude of things over when I was 40.

It doesn't happen over night, it is just a slow creep of pessimism that you can't stop. Maybe it is some kind of natural personal evolvement to help us deal with the fact that we are closer to the end of our lives.

Living 200 years sounds great when you are young. It isn't such a hot prospect when you are older.


Vllad

[Jakensama]

Meh, I think alot of that has to do with body aging too. If you could stay healthy and youthfull and live a long time I am guessing it would be better.

Probably moreso if you were rich and didn't have children who drained your lifeforce as well. If your life sucks or your in pain you'll tire of it early, if your life is awesome then you probably wont lose your passion for living.

[Thudz]

Meh, I think alot of that has to do with body aging too. If you could stay healthy and youthfull and live a long time I am guessing it would be better.

Probably moreso if you were rich and didn't have children who drained your lifeforce as well. If your life sucks or your in pain you'll tire of it early, if your life is awesome then you probably wont lose your passion for living.

Having children has increased my passion for life.

[Jakensama]

It was a joke.

[Vanraw]

Jokes aside, the physical aspects of aging does have allot to do with the passion or zest we have for life. Im not talking about the old legs and heart, but the chemical balances inside our brains.

I think there is a little Chicken egg thing going on. Does life's passions fade because of repetitiveness (Ive heard it all before) and in doing so change the state of our mind? Or does the chemical balances of our brain impact the mind so that we are less sharp and less inclined to have passion?

There are some interesting efforts going on right now in relation to giving HGH to older people. Not only is it helping them grow muscles and be physically fit, but their passion for life returns to levels that they had in their 20s. This to me points more towards a root cause of and aging chemical factory we call the human body, as ooposed to a phsycilogical perception that "Ive seen it all and there just isnt anything that lights my fire".

Medical science has only scratched the surface of the human brain and how its chemo-electrical mechanisms work. Perhaps in 200 years we will understand.

FYI, I saw that show, and it was well done.

[Vllad]

How ironic that it is the pleasure centers of the brain that go first and not the pain centers.


Vllad

[Moristans]

Let's not confound aging with senescence. Everything and everybody ages at the same rate. Not everything and everybody senesce at the same rate. I think it's the feeling that our mind is willing but our body is not is what ultimately defeats our passion for the things we like to do and makes us feel like crap about our lives.

If I didn't rip my Achille's tendon to shreds running submaster's track, I'd probably still be competing in master's track. One of the things about being diagnosed with a uncurable, chronic, disease at a young age is that you get a nice splash of coldwater thrown on your sense of immortality precisely at the time when you should be feeling most immortal. That made me more passionate about what I could do physically and more passionate about pursuing it for as long as I could. Not being able to get up on my toes at a 100% sprint anymore made me feel like crap about it.

Today, there are many many more outlets for older people than before, probably because of the aging populations in countries that enjoy the luxury of leisure time. There's a lot of buzz about how happy men in heir 60s apparently are. I can't wait for the day when my hormones aren't raging anymore and I can enjoy the simple pleasure of a well prepared grilled cheese sandwich without worrying about anything else in my life.

So, I don't think it's the prospect of living a mortal life that kills our passion, if our passion is killable. I think it's the inability to enjoy what we feel passionate about in any meaningful way. From Monty Python's point of view, it's difficult to feel passionate about comedy when nothing is funny to you anymore.

From my point of view, it's just plain difficult to be passionate about that brand of British comedy for any length of time, period. I still enjoy Benny Hill and Monty Python, but I'm not cushed that we haven't seen any new material in decades.