My Passionate Nature.

I have often wondered where my passions come from. Supposedly our behaviour is a mixture of nature and nurture – a mix of our genes and our upbringing, but I wonder. For example, I am truly passionate about redheads. Trivial I know, but it’s a good place to start. The question is, why? I have known very few redheads in my life and have, rather unfortunately, slept with none of them. There are no redheads in my family and haven’t been for at least three generations so it’s not as if I formed an attachment to a family member which later translated into passion (thank you Freud for that idea). So where does it come from? I’m intrigued. The only possible thing I can think of, and it’s a bit of a stretch I know, is that my family are from Ireland (not too long ago) where I assume redheads are more common. Can my genes from generations ago really by driving my passion for red hair?

My passion (or addiction) for books is fairly easy to explain. My farther was always a big believer in books and our house was overflowing with them long before I left. It’s the same with movies. This I think was my fathers defining passion. He loved the cinema and has clearly passed on this love to me. Movies and books are constantly competing for my time and attention and it’s unusual not to see me with my nose in a book or lining up at the cinema.

It’s more difficult to explain other things though. Why do I love a certain small percentage of the music I hear around me and not a different small percentage? I remember hearing Albinoni’s Adagio in G minor many years ago (featured in the great movie Rollerball) but it was probably ten years later that I actually found out what it was called & immediately bought the CD. I am actually rather passionate about this piece and in the right frame of mind it can reduce me to tears it’s just so…. I don’t actually have the words to describe it. Why is it that I love particular works of art? I’ve read that great art has something to do with mathematics – the same with music – but whilst interesting it doesn’t really go far in answering the question of why I LOVE certain things and not others. If it was that easy then everyone would agree on great works of art though clearly they do not.

So it goes on. Can we explain what drives us? Is it psychological, genetic, cultural, do we derive our passions from our peers, our family, our personal experiences? Are they simply a combination of all of the above? I suppose in another way I’m asking the question: What makes us… us?

Where do you think your passions come from?