Most people don't have passions in life, they do have a passion for possession and social status though. Our culture also looks down on the people that don't have all these status symbols, and people naturally do not want to be looked down upon, so they keep racing to keep up just so their peers respect them. Our culture breeds depression. There are farmers in third world countries that live a more meaningful and joyful life than most do here. Koyaanisqatsi.
That is true but also people come to care about what they do. They may not be "passionate" about work but it is what they spend the most time doing, it is their main source of daily challenge and problem solving, it represents social interaction, and it is their main source of pride and accomplishment and personal striving. To just up and leave work leaves a huge void in their lives. People can learn to fill that void with art or gardening or various other things but it may take years and years of discipline and self-reflection to become satisfied.
I said that because the parent comment said "I just don't understand this at all. If you can earn a million a year, do it for 3-5 years, never have to work again, and pursue your passions in life." They don't have those passions in life per say and fill that void with work and other things. You are actually echoing what I'm saying in your own way.
Also, I like how people bring up gardening sometimes when passion is discussed. To me, passion is coupled with expression and allows you to take on an identity in some other "world". You can be passionate about music, you can have your musical identity. You can be passionate about mathematics, you can have your way of reasoning about problems. But gardening? Is there a difference between things you really like to do and a passion?
When I think of 'passion', I think of creating things, making things better, doing something that can bring me into a state of flow. I'm not an avid gardener, but I can absolutely see how gardening would tick those boxes for someone who was.
You're right. My father was a gardener, so I should have known better than to feel that way. I saw him prepare the soil, sow the seeds, and give the plants the support they needed to thrive over time. Thinking about the process of gardening makes me understand how it could be a passion. What about the classes of passion? Can gardening be put on the same level as art? Why or why not? They certainly at least have a different pace about them. A painter can work quickly, but a gardener must have such patience. Obviously a painter also must have patience with the process as well. I would like to think of this in a more mathematical way. This idea that in the space of gardening there are certain operations and objects that are distinct from, let's say, the domain of music. When you look at it that way, what is the character of the constructive mathematics being done in these spaces? This is now apparently liberal arts news.
change 'gardening' to 'nurturing' and you might get a sense of the fulfillment (contentedness?) of being able to enjoy your creation that took planning, effort and time. exponential if you get to enjoy your children enjoying it too. it may be small but leaving _your_ patch of dirt a better place than you found it can be a personally enriching pasttime. then again, i don't understand people that create gardens so they can be photographed for lifestyle magazines so there's that...
When I read 'gardening', internally I interpreted that as any agricultural/floricultural pursuit. That spans everything from an indoor potted cactus, to no-till gardening, to hydroponics, to soil-management, etc etc. Growing plants is as much a science as it is a creative pursuit.
I wonder if the problem is simply exaggerated. Is this really only the case with white-collar Americans? I'd imagine that throughout the human history the vast majority of human beings have always been working like this, or even much worse, e.g. actual slaves who constituted a huge percentage of the population. Maybe it's just that there isn't that much of a tradition to talk about the problem that often, and now that our material comfort is quite advanced, we think about such issues more and more, which is a good thing. We're not quite there yet but at least we're rethinking our lives and trying to find solutions, instead of just passively accepting whatever is thrown at us.
