rants too good to be completely true... but sort of true

I ran into this on Twitter while looking at articles on creative writing. It's a happy, cheery, follow-your-bliss thing. And like you'd expect from anyone using the term passion, Holstee turns out to be a company selling stuff for people above my income bracket. We live in an age where "passion," "change," "challenge," "leadership," "hope," "family" and "positive" are all someone's buzzwords. Maybe it's always been this way.

And there's more. Maslow's hierarchy of human needs is a very real thing. A lot of misery and not-following-your-bliss comes out of the need to pay the rent and the bills. A lot of following your bliss has to do with being able to pay for education about how to do some of the technical aspects of your bliss. And when you're pretty badly hit by psychological or physical problems, following your bliss might be 'way more energy and money than you can manage. A lot of people can't make the choice of dropping their food service/loading dock/warehouse/office/whatever jobs to open the restaurant/write an amazing new novel/code up an amazing new program/play Delta blues/whatever. "Go out and start creating, live your dream and share your passion" is a position of privilege. And I know very well I'm writing this from a position of envy.

Here's where I think there's a catch. "Go out and start creating, live your dream and share your passion" is not actually bad advice. I think that more people have that position of privilege than they think - for all I know, I might. I think most of us aren't very good at gauging where we need to give up and hold off, and where we can go follow our blisses.

That's all I wanted to say.