On Passion
Passion, that thing right there is a doozy. For men especially.
It’s different from love, different from strong feelings for someone or thing. It isn’t shown through textbook phrases, because nobody ever says, “I feel passionate for you.” Passion is a show-me type of thing, a look-what-I-did-for-you type of thing; never expressed in words, only in actions.
Before a man has any type of passion for a woman, he desires her, he likes her a lot. He may even love her. But passion comes later, often times last, because when a man is passionate about a woman it means he’s had her all and he doesn’t want any of that to leave. Not ever.
Passion makes men do stupid things that at the time seem like the smartest things in the world. Things like, looking online to buy a $600 airplane ticket just so you can patch things up with the woman you feel most passionate about. She doesn’t ask you to do it, tries to discourage you from doing it, but you think, Maybe if I do this, you will understand that I don’t just love you. I don’t just have strong feelings for you. I am passionate about you and keeping you in my life. Oh yeah, passion also makes us do things like type emails in all italic letters just so we can emphasize our feelings.
What’s the difference between passion and love? I think love can be extended no matter the distance. Like I always told my ex, “We don’t have to be together to love each other.” But passion? Passion is about doing whatever it takes to stay with the person we love. Whatever. It. Takes. Passion kills. Think O.J. Simpson. Think Bengals Wide Receiver, Chris Henry. Men, think about you and the lengths you’ve gone to keep a woman in your life. Go into debt, get into trouble, act a fool, all of that. Passion.
Men are passionate about becoming men first, loving a woman, second. So what they do is they concentrate on things that don’t entirely have to do with loving a woman. They’re passionate about things like sports, establishing a career for themselves, making money and becoming caretakers. Then, when they find a woman they do love, the same mentality they took to something like establishing their career is the same mentality they have in making her happy. And with the same passion they exhibited when it came time to fix a mistake they made on the job, they will exhibit when it comes time to fix whatever needs to be fixed in the relationship.
Passion is messy, out of control, and it’s understood to be those things. When people say they love someone, but mess up, the victim of said person’s mistake always says, “But I thought you loved me.” Because we think love means right, never means wrong. But passion? Passion means being wrong and trying over and over and over again to be right.
Love is quite simply love. It’s complicated, sure, but only like Algebra is complicated. Even a few idiots are able to understand Algebra. Passion, on the other hand, is straight calculus because it’s more than love. It’s love, hate, happiness, sadness, anger, and joy all wrapped into one. Fools need not apply to it.
Even as I sit here typing this, I’m wondering if any of these words about passion are making sense and coming out the way I want them too. But I’m not quite sure, I just know this morning, I saw the story about Chris Henry, who died after falling out of the back of the truck his fiancee was driving. According to the news reports, they were in a domestic dispute, and as she was driving away, Henry hopped into the back of the truck, in what I can only assume was his attempt at making her stay. As a result, he lost his life.
And I don’t know that man, as a matter of fact, he played for the team that I, as a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, am raised to hate. But when I saw the news and I saw how it came to this – a man running after a car as though he could actually catch it with his bare hands and hold it in his arms – I understood what he was doing. He was doing what all men do when they feel passionate about anything; he risked his life to go after it. That’s deeper than love, that’s passion, and that thing right there is a doozy.
