Passion, Fire My Heart

When I was younger I used to love playing this collectible card game called Magic, The Gathering. I could spend entire days going through my cards thinking about good combos to employ in my decks (never really felt like looking for them online) and I still have hundreds (thousands?) of those cards wandering around. The most amazing thing about that passion, besides the large sums of money I was willing to spend on it, was the ammount of mental energy I had available for it. I could name hundreds of those cards, as well as their effects and even picture their illustrations in my mind (I would draw them if I could survive the embarassment). Some of the cards also had somewhat random quotes taken from the series of books (which I have never read) and I also knew most of them by heart.

One of my favourite cards, which was in fact as common as they get, had this quote: Passion, fire my heart. Though seemingly taken from a cheesy romantic book, the phrase was actually a war cry. The card was called Crown Of Fury (really nasty thing in a Goblins deck by the way) and had absolutely nothing to do with love or women. The lesson, already stated repeatedly in this blog, goes as follows: whatever your goal is, be it chasing a woman or slaughtering a bunch of wood elves, you will do it best if you do it with passion.

It is also interesting to notice the association with fire. Fire is a reckless force of nature, blind and unrelenting in its path of destruction. Blind, but blinding as well in all its bright glowing might. So too can untamed passions blind and burn us. And if left to spread and burn strong at their will, they too have a tendency to die out fast. However, look at anyone who has ever really succeeded at anything and you will find the common denominator is the passion for what they do.

Unfortunately, passion is not really something we can create; there is no switch for turning that driving force on. As in Springsteen's song, you can't start a fire without a spark. We can, however, fuel or smother, just like an actual fire. Similarly to when lighting a fireplace, one can use that first tiny spark to light something much larger and more beautiful. This need to be available is also present in Bruce's song, for instance when he sings you can't start a fire worried about your little world falling apart.

The war cry thus seems most appropriate for times when our strength falters and our spirits grow weary. Instead of praying for luck or divine intervention, remember that willpower is mankind's most powerful motor, and that is all you need or should desire to attain your goals. Passion, fire my heart.


Filipe Baptista de Morais

Go After It

I would like to start this short post by linking this TED Talk, on the possible benefits of stress. While the studies backing the first claims do seem to lack some robustness, statistically speaking, the lecture itself is extremely interesting. Personally I've always felt like stress makes me grumpier and less social rather than more empathetic as suggested. Still, we're often wrong when trying to perceive our own behaviour, and I guess it is undeniable that stressful moments do indeeed push ourselves into opening ourselves and sharing our feeling with others as a ways to easen our burden. Physically speaking everyone knows it can work both ways: it can make us capable of the most astonishing physically prowesses as well as cripple us in the most ridiculous ways.

For me the best part of the speech, apart from the good looking speaker, is her final advise: "chasing meaning is better for your health than trying to avoid discomfort, (...) go after what it is that creates meaning in your life and then trust yourself to handle the stress that follows." Stress comes and goes, and so do regrets, while meaningful things will linger within us much longer. Even if it were not better for your health, in the end it would still be definately better for your life. If you have found what it is that creates meaning in your life, go after it.


Filipe Baptista de Morais