Please, please, please! Be passionate about your passions! It sounds like such a simple request, a call to action so undemanding that it doesn’t even need to be said, right? Wrong!
Think about it. When we talk to one another we almost always start with some small talk: “How was your day?” or maybe “Anything new happening at the academy?” Then we trade jokes, having an awfully good time with our friends. Maybe if the mood calms down, we might have a chance to touch upon more solemn topics and find security in the meeting. But how often do you get the chance to talk about something that excites you? A hobby you’ve had since being a child, or a new idea you’ve been reading about? In the few times I’ve had to talk about it, I start to clam up; I fall short of the excitement I had when thinking about it by myself.
Perhaps you’ve had the same feeling: your hobby riles you up just wondering when you’ll get the next chance to practice it, but the second you start explaining it to someone else, it’s like the whole concept is suddenly foreign. Instead of feeling like an emboldened amateur or even self-declared professional, it at all feels lukewarm.
Finding the right words for how we feel can be difficult, especially when it feels like there’s so much riding on our ability to transmit excitement itself, or maybe it’s the strange way one becomes vulnerable when opening up like that, or maybe whoever was listening brushed it off like your passion was a distraction to them.
But it can’t stop you now! I certainly won’t let it stop me!
Because when you overcome the first hurdle of self-created embarrassment, you can get loud with it! Bear a grin as you pick apart your passion, and others will find themselves following along, regardless if they’ll try it out or even if they understand – it’s exciting to see others excited.
Talk about how to build a ship in a bottle, and how intricate movements must be; explain how to identify all the minerals and jewels of the mines; debate blacksmithing techniques and leather tanning; argue over books and their covers, and everything in between! If you listen to others because they’re excited, so too will they listen to you! And in the end, we’ll all know a little more about our friends.
“The Goblin Cave” weaves vivid imagery and prose with reflections and commentary on the world around us. Written by Ethan Reisler, “The Goblin Cave” looks at society, reality and culture from a far away land not unlike our own.