What is your passion? Do you even know what that means? It is such an overused word (and concept) that its meaning can easily be lost. Passion doesn’t mean that you merely get excited or enthusiastic about something. Passion is defined as “the state or capacity of being acted on by external agents or forces” and “intense, driving, or overmastering feeling or conviction.” This is very strong language, but let me relay my experience.
Rock and roll is something about which I have been passionate since I can remember. I was 16 when, seemingly “driven by an overmastering feeling or conviction,” I went to the music store and bought an electric guitar. AC/DC’s diminutive guitarist Angus Young had long captivated me with his shredding blues licks, Australian schoolboy stage outfit, and red Gibson SG guitar. He was the embodiment of the primordial culmination of thunderous chords and squealing solos--the ultimate “fuck you” to authority. I left the store that day with an electric guitar. Mind you--I did not own an amplifier and could neither tune the guitar, change the strings, nor play a single chord. I was, however, absolutely hellbent on learning how to play.
From this humble beginning I began to seek out other kids that played and would beg them to show me anything they could. I was an absolute sponge--looking back nearly 22 years later, this was the first time in my life I was truly a student of anything. This was not school or religion, the things that had been forced upon me. This was everything I had sought out myself, and NOTHING would dissuade me. There was no way that I was not going to learn how to play, no matter what I had to do. I steadily progressed and, within 6-8 months, was becoming more proficient than kids that had been teaching me. From that day to this I have enjoyed all facets of guitar-playing and have definitely developed a level of mastery with which I am thrilled. I still play most days and have finally purchased what was for me the Holy Grail of rock and roll--a 2011 cherry-burst Gibson SG guitar--just like Angus.
In short, I know I am passionate about something when I am seeking out and following through on something strictly under my own direction. My musical ability is one of the things of which I am most proud in my life because no one else did any of it for me and my incredible enthusiasm has never waned.
Later I will discuss living your passion (hint--you don’t just have one passion!!!).
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