Thanks for the reply, long enough for me to get a better sense of your outlook and I dig it, wasn't looking for a list of everything you are into so thanks for sharing!
Knowing there's the ability to approach life in that way, or as Tim raved about in the rave thread, finding nirvana nirply from a hot shower warm sweats and snow, gives me a little more inspiration to reflect on my own outlook and learn to appreciate life more, because I've always been a 'goals' guy and achieving some and accepting that I won't others, still leaves a lot to be desired. Maybe that's the hunger you and Narz speak to but I know for myself it sometimes seems like I have no passions.
Thanks everyone for sharing much appreciated!
I feel like in a way goals and passions are something opposed to each other: a goal is a temporary state you are trying to reach. after you have reached it, you abandon it. The passion is the opposite. It's a thing you do for its own sake. Most people that hike just like being around nature, they don't really do it for weight loss. The activity itself is the point, you go out into nature to be in nature. You'd never abandon a passion, because you cannot "fulfill" a passion. A passion is like a commitment, like a relationship with something, other than someone.
Another example, I used to both lift and run just to lose weight and look better. While it was sometimes fun, it mostly was a pain in the ass and felt like work. I was micromanaging, measuring calory intake, making exercise plans, noting progress and setting timers etc. I did achieve what I set out, lost a bit more than 80 pounds and felt like the work was done. And then as time went by I stopped, because it was never fun or enjoyable. Unsurprisingly I gained back more than 25 pounds in just a few years.
But recently I've taken up training again, on a pretty unrelated note. My uncle, a fantastic guy that I loved a great deal, passed away. He had an exercise bench and some dumbells and barbells that he used for decades, with no one really up to take them. I've always liked weight training the most out of exercising, it's the only one that ever felt "right" to me in a sense, so I went for it. I like the kind of tingling sesation that the brittle metal leaves on your hands. The coldness of it, the heaviness. When you're training with exercise machines in a gym, ever move of yours is in a way predestined. Your posture, movement etc. are predefined by the machine. When you're doing free body or free weight training you need correct posture. You need to get a feel for how to move organically, something which is pretty much lost on 21st century humans. We can't even take a poop or lift things correctly
(referring to the fact that modern toilets are built too high and put us into an unhealthy position, when correctly it should be something analogous to squatting), and its damaging us. Getting a feel for your body, your organs, the whole flow of it, is something I've always admired. It greatly helps in understanding what is really going on in this meat cage, and in my opinion it's quite fascinating and beautiful, though I suppose few people include the gut micriobiome or lung capillaries in their definition of beauty, I certainly do.
The point is: Exercise feels different now, in every way. It's no longer work, it's rather something I actually want to do. I no longer optimize, I just follow where it leads me. I'll only increase weight if it feels right, do the exercises that I'm best equipped to do and that appeal to me, that have some beauty in their movement, instead of having a perfectly lined out full body training. I choose the occasion and the mood. Sometimes I don't even put on music, just listen to the sounds of my breath and the metal clicking. And of course I think about my uncle a lot, and feel kinda connected to him. That's just the icing on the cake. I hope I could paint a decent picture of what is a goal and what is a passion, and how one could transform a goal into a passion. As so often,
@Synsensa said it better, with fewer words. The difference between a goal in life, and a passion is, paraphrasing:
It's one thing to want to have children. It's another to want to take care of, nurture, love children.
Edit: I want to make myself clear so I'm not misunderstood with the point I am making. I don't think having goals in life is bad, at all. I have many goals, actually, material ones, too. Goals are a great source of motivation to all of us, they help us work harder and pull through. Finishing something is a worthy task in and of itself, in my opinion. And yeah, I do actually spend a great deal of my free time aspiring towards some goals I set, like writing my first cookbook. But, and here is the big catch: I don't think this gives me any purpose, or meaning, or much fulfillment. Quite the opposite. Once you reach a goal it leaves you with happiness and catharsis, but also with a hole. That hole will be another, further goal. Ad infinitum. Almost any goal you can think of can be one-upped. It's the opposite with passions. My weightlifting would be more effective, but not more meaningful with better equipment. Your fishing doesn't get more meaningful with a better rod. There is no competition when you're doing something for its own sake. I'm really happy with my new kitchen, but I felt just as happy and fulfilled, maybe even moreso, baking my first bread in a horrible ineffective mini toaster oven. Goals are perfect for what they're intended for: Achieving something you set out to do. But they don't fix our holes, they just prop up new ones. They can suck us in, make us anxious, inferior even. It's not easy growing up in a world where for literally anything you can think of, someone out there has done it better, much earlier than you, looking better while doing it. Of course that's not true, but that's the feeling many a aspiring pianist is left with when watching some 9 year old chinese kid run circles around his skills. I think a passion can fill a hole, if you find meaning in it. One passion almost any human shares with another is just watching nature. Few people don't seem awed by a beautiful sunset or grass in the wind, but I fear the number is increasing. Still, that doesn't take away any of my enjoyment from the small things in life.
