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Root of Passion

by | Mar 23, 2015

This past Thursday I took a day trip to Washington D.C. to visit FEMA and the Red Cross National Headquarters. It was an opportunity offered to me by a class I took last semester, IST 445H, as the my professor was the one leading the trip. If I’m being honest, I went more to hang out with the classmates that I missed seeing every Tuesday and Thursday, but I will admit I learned a thing or two on the trip as well.

We were encouraged to live tweet the whole experience; that’s what happens when you have a teacher who is obsessed with social media. We even made an official trip hashtag: #PennStateofEmergency. While some others were more actively using the hashtag, I used it more to reflect than anything else. I truly think this helped me make the most of the trip.

My favorite moment of the day, and subsequent favorite tweet of the day, was when I learned my fun fact of the day.

Passion:

: a strong feeling of enthusiasm or excitement for something or about doing something

: a strong feeling (such as anger) that causes you to act in a dangerous way

               : a strong sexual or romantic feeling for someone

I probably could have defined passion as something close to what these three definitions revolve around: a very intense motivational feeling. But that’s not what surprised me about the word passion.

Origin of Passion:

                Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin passion-, passio – suffering, being acted upon, from Latin pati to suffer — more at patient

Passion comes from the root of suffering, something that I had never associated with the word. When I think of passion, I think of things I love or things that carry significant meaning. The year I entered Schreyer, one of our questions was “What are you passionate about?” Though I believe my answer to this question (which was cheese, of course) was one of the main reasons I was accepted to the honors college, looking back on it I probably should have written about something else.
As much as I love cheese, I wouldn’t say I’m willing to suffer for it. My cheese metaphor was really a more creative way to say that I love learning about other cultures and different people around the world. But I wouldn’t say that I’m willing to suffer for that either. Now that I’m thinking more about it, I would have a really hard time deciding what I’m truly passionate about, deciding what I would suffer for. I haven’t answered it, which I know is a cop out and an anticlimactic ending to this post, but I’ve decided I don’t want to rush to any decisions. I need more time to think about what in my life is so important to me and what I love so much that I would be truly willing to suffer over it.
With this origin of the word in mind, what are your true passions?