I Would Rather the House Burn Down

Being passionate often manifests itself in behaviors that can be seen as alienating, silly, reckless, and--at times--overly sensitive.  Think of a room full of people choking on a cloud of collective embarrassment as someone addresses the crowd with vigor and conviction.  Picture heads lowering, smirks smudging hand-covered mouths as the speaker speaks of something she believes in, watch the way the audience tries not to burst into a laughter born of their own inability to connect with any true feeling.

In a culture increasingly focused on how to hide, the passionate person becomes pariah faster than you can say "There's an app. for that."  Walking down city streets, plugged into iPhones, iPods, mp3s, Blackberries, and any other digitial distraction removes the need to engage, the need to interact with the breathing world because the electronic one is so much more alluring in its safety and obscurity.  As long as we are connecting in the ether--our words and musings made public in tweets and facebook statuses--we never have to tell anyone how we feel...at least, not to face to face.

While there is a case to be made for the digital age, for the broader disemination of information, and for the global conversation that can emerge in such a format, somewhere along the way our heads get buried so far down that we can't hear our own heartbeats anymore.  This burial and heart-deafness results in a disconnect between what we feel and the value of those feelings.  Being passionate becomes synonymous only with being amorous or unstable, but there are actually twelve definitions.

pas·sion   /ˈpæʃən/ Show Spelled[pash-uhn] –noun

1.any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling, as love or hate.
2.strong amorous feeling or desire; love; ardor.
3.strong sexual desire; lust.
4.an instance or experience of strong love or sexual desire.
5.a person toward whom one feels strong love or sexual desire.
6.a strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm, or desire for anything: a passion for music.
7.the object of such a fondness or desire: Accuracy became a passion with him.
8.an outburst of strong emotion or feeling: He suddenly broke into a passion of bitter words.
9.violent anger.
10.the state of being acted upon or affected by something external, esp. something alien to one's nature or one's customary behavior (contrasted with action).
11.(often initial capital letter) Theology.
a.the sufferings of Christ on the cross or His sufferings subsequent to the Last Supper.
b.the narrative of Christ's sufferings as recorded in the Gospels.
12.Archaic. the sufferings of a martyr.

Perhaps the reason we've become so uninterested in passion stems from our move away from letting art articulate the way we feel.  Now, a person's worldview is far more often summed up by a bumper sticker, trucker hat, or novelty t-shirt.  It's not about what artwork you have on the wall so much as it is about which label you brandish across your chest.   

My passion, today, turns my head to Frank O'Hara.  The title of this post comes from his poem "Christmas Card to Grace Hartigan.'  In the last stanza he writes:
"Christmas is the time of cold air
and loud parties and big expense,
but in our hearts flames flicker 
answeringly, as on old-fashioned
trees.  I would rather the house
burn down than our flames go out."

Today, I want all of us to unplug and reconnect with the things we take for granted.  I want us to pull our heads up from the sand and listen.  I want our steps to match the rhythm of our beating hearts and I want us to stop being embarrassed by the things we feel and embrace them, shout them from rooftops, proclaim to all who can hear that our passion is real, viable, beautiful, and going nowhere.