Dumb Ideas Like Passion & Why People Don't Start

Dec 20, 2020

What Should I Do?

There is no such thing as passion. People waste their time looking for or waiting for a revelation. If you still believe in passion and have not found it, do what you want to do today. Do what you want to do in the short-term. Be what you want to be in the short-term. If your interest changes in future, simply change your path. No, you won’t be wasting your time doing what you won’t end up doing. If you stay dormant, waiting for a revelation, you’ll be wasting your time anyway. You definitely will get lazy.

You may ask what you want to do right now. Do the highest thing you can do to meaningfully contribute to society/the market. This meaningful contribution is called occupation. If you want more clarity, conduct a thought experiment. Imagine you and your friends went to an island to set up a civilization. Everyone picks up a productive task that they are interested in doing. What you pick is your job. Money and modern corporate work culture have made things complicated. Don't be misled by society.

Of all possible things you want to do, pick the one of the highest virtue, something of potentially the most value to society. Do it until you change your mind. Don't sit waiting for a revelation.

On Dumb Ideas Like Passion & Why People Don't Start

(I had written this spin a few weeks ago)

Do what you want to do right now. Many don't start because they are unsure if they would want the same thing months and years down the line. This uncertainty produces a kind of existential dormancy, which is far worse than working towards a worthy goal that will potentially lose its significance one day.

As a child, I put my 100 into Mathematics. By early teenage, I found Physics. It started to pull more and more of me. By the time I reached college, I had developed interest in people and society. After years of studying Physics, I suddenly switched to Psychology in college. At that moment, I thought psychology housed my destiny.

That was 2015. I changed my major several times. 5 years down the line, here I am, writing on philosophy and religion. 5 years down the line, I may be doing something else. I don’t know my passion. I don’t know if there is such a thing as passion. And it surely does not matter if passion exists or not. People are afraid to go all-in because they don’t want to waste time on things they won’t end up doing. But they waste time anyway by nihilistically going about a meaningless life. Someone can say that I, studying physics and math all through middle school and high school, wasted years of my life because I ended up pursuing psychology in college. But if I had not studied math and physics, I would have wasted my time anyway, perhaps playing video games and doing dumb things.

Thus, you shouldn’t worry about finding your passion or purpose. That’s a waste of time. Do what you want to do right now. Be what you want to be right now. And go 100 in it.

To those who want to know more about dumb ideas like passion-

You are trying too hard. You want to know what lies ahead. You want to encroach upon the unknown, sneak in on it, and take a peek. You are overstepping. But I want to see faith. I want to see a faithful surrender. A faithful surrender allows you to be driven by the same cause that drives Earth around the Sun and causes stars to shine. Don't try to win against life/Universe. That's an internal struggle, sometimes manifested as what people call depression, anger, passive aggression, etc.

Update on April 17, 2021 -

It is only normal for your interest to change. Larva becomes pupa. Pupa becomes adult. It is called growing up.