Morgan Jones | Why you should be passionless

Forget passion. Dump it in the corner with “Life’s Little Instruction Book” and any other advice you’ve received about growth, fostering who you are or pursuing a path because you’re interested, perhaps even invested, in it. We’re young. Passion is vague. We’ve got better things to do.

Come to college, and forget the fringe club that you started in high school. Ignore what you like to do on the weekends, or when you are alone. Better yet, never take the time to ask yourself what you like to do when you’re alone. Figure that no one shares an interest in your passions; mold to the crowd interest.

Pursue the mundane and the accepted. Don’t travel by yourself, take the subway by yourself or stay outside for too long. Spend your life in class, on Facebook and making small talk at a local bar. Only go to bars where the music is too loud to hear and the lights are too dim to see. Get lost in the cycle.

Watch time pass, and let yourself feel alone. Try to fill that hole with external fixes, band-aids.

Let yourself bypass opportunities and relationships that cultivating your passion may lead you to. When you meet people, never delve below the surface, because you may have never even taken the time to delve beneath your own surface. Or if you have, so what that you like photography? Your friend may too, but screw it, it’s not like you’re going to talk about something like that. Resist the urge to discover, explore and experiment. Never get up with the earliest light to capture an image that will stay with you. You and your friend will find other things to bond over.

Why should you be passionless? Because finding a passion takes time — cultivating one takes even longer. And once you have it, pursuing it is difficult. It may make you different from those around you. It may give strangers a look at something you keep hidden behind your secret doors. It is an opportunity for what some might consider failure.

It may also be scary, and it may not make a ton of money. It may not even require an Ivy League degree or OCR in the end. That’s kind of tough to think about right now.

Forget passion, or you may find yourself pulled to a life off the beaten path. The path has been beaten for a reason. Robert Frost erred when he said to take the path less traveled — always travel in herds, and don’t look around. Follow the footsteps in front of you. Don’t ask questions.

Because if you did, you might realize some things.

“Follow your passion” is simple and daring, but it is vague — “cultivation” here is the key. It is becoming a craftsman of your interests, so they become more than entertainment or excitement. Buying a camera, studying light and day and night and subjects, creating an album and honing your talent will pay off more than any Instagram shot taken in a matter of seconds. It may not be quick, but the piece of you in it will make it worth your time.

It is investment, and it is creating value in what you love. It won’t necessarily be material value, but it can manifest itself in other ways. Someone may fall in love with you because of your passion, your differences. Someone may find inspiration from the craftsmanship you have built, the person you have created in yourself. One day you may find yourself out of class, without Facebook, alone. You might want to have learned who you are.

Or, don’t. Live a long, static life. Die satisfied.

Morgan Jones is a College senior from Colorado Springs, Co. Email her at morganjo@sas.upenn.edu or send her a tweet @morganjo_. “Nuggets of Wisdom” appears every other Friday.

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