Passion and Anger

The mysterious Eric Norlin said in an email that he’s cracked the code:

Passion = Love + Anger

he wrote. I asked him to write a bloggerino on this so I could respond, so instead he meta-blogged as follows:

I wrote in an email the other day: Passion = Love + Anger. The good doctor disagreed and asked for a blog so that he might counter-blog….the stage is yours, David.

The small point is that this is obviously wrong. Passion is sometimes love and anger, but there are lots of things we don’t need anger to be passionate about, including (in no particular order): our children, our spouses, compression algorithms, and marzipan in the shape of small household objects.

The larger point is: Why does Eric’s equation seem plausible? It helps that it’s sometimes true. It helps that it’s true for some of the most prominent of passions, including for Linux and Open Source which wouldn’t be nearly as much fun if Microsoft weren’t around. But it is also distressingly true for so much of what passes for passion on the Net. With so many voices clamoring for attention, the Web has a natural inclination towards flaming. And anger adds a moral gravitas to one’s outrageousness: you can grab people’s attention if you dress in a tie-dyed shirt, a fake boa, and no pants, but if you burn your draft card at the same time, you’re a rebel, not just a flamboyant asshole.

That’s one reason I so appreciated Gary Turner’s “sentimental” blog entry the other day. No histrionics, no hiding behind the protection of a good head of self-righteous indignation.

Don’t get me wrong: there’s nothing I like better than a bout of sweet, foam-in-your-mouth-not-in-your-hands self-righteous indignation! But this isn’t the only form of passion … and all too often it’s merely a self-indulgent, look-at-me fit in the guise of passion.

Back to you, Eric!

Categories: Uncategorized dw