Passion

/ˈpæʃ.ən/

noun

: an extreme interest in or wish for doing something, such as a hobby, activity, etc

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Part One

I have started to write a diary since high school. Though I don't remember if I have started long before that--considering writing had always been my thing back then--I can clearly remember that in high school, I had become an avid diary writer who didn't just breakdown the details of my day-to-day experience but also reflected my emotions toward the events.

Writing was the escape I chose from the real world when it got too harsh, a way I found perfect to fix my treasured memories in time. I found peace in feeling my emotions transformed into something I could see and revisit. It was kind of an end-of-day ritual to pour everything out to papers as if the emotions weren't real until I saw it in the form of composed words.

But just when my life became more interesting as I was trying to adapt to the weather and time zone of Istanbul, the urge to document everything in a writing gradually ebbed away.

Maybe I just didn't have the time. Maybe I was more into living in the moment without having to think about which word I should use to describe the excitement, the smell of the cold breeze, the happiness, and all of the first-times.

My dad had told me to start a blog for my stories in Istanbul but I kept dodging his request until weeks after that.

Later I realized, writing wasn't as easy as it used to be.

Because my dad was so persistent in his request, I would find myself trying to write a thing or two, a process that involved a tremendous effort. At that point, I saw writing more as a duty, far from a therapeutic activity I used to enjoy.

My motivation was back after a post about my scholarship received numerous positive feedbacks and got shared more than a hundred times (courtesy to my friend who shared it on Facebook), prompting dozens of strangers to email me, and ask some questions. I proceeded to write the story of how I won the scholarship which also received similar remarks. My blog started to get more traffic and I realized that I could be helpful for other people through my writing and continued to write more posts.

But one day, a critic reached my ear. It said that the style of my writing didn't exhibit any quality that a journalism student should possess.

From then on, writing was a struggle.

I might seem too overdramatic to let one critic discouraged me. But it wasn't the first one. I'd had enough other people telling me how I didn't write as much as a journalism student should. I worked my way around them and tried hard to continue writing--as I said--with great effort, but then I heard someone saying that I didn't do well enough? Do you think I wasn't furious? My head was composing a long defense narrative for the comment I found so vitriolic I felt I could punch a wall without uttering a single ouch afterward.

But I did nothing. Didn't punch any wall nor did I utter a single word. In the end, I could only watch myself fall towards the gravity of the critic.

Writing became harder. Just like a host doing a monologue for the sake of talking, from then on I was writing only for the sake of writing. And that was only the beginning of the series of my mental challenges.

Because I stopped enjoying writing, I started to lose interest in journalism, the major I chose partly because of my interest in writing. And when you don't love something you're doing, they become a burden.

I was also feeling awfully guilty to my dad who had always supported me and waited for my next post. But nothing I could do. I'd try to write only to find myself contemplating about what others would think of it, if it was journalistic enough. I didn't know what I wanted. I lost interest in everything.

Part Two

One day I was introduced to Mbak Shatila (or Sha for short) who was taking an exchange program at a university in Istanbul. We immediately clicked with each other soon after we met.

I didn't know it at that time if she would help me to find something new to love doing, something to invest my soul into.

She loved capturing photos and be captured. She taught me to use her camera and before I knew, I was getting the hang of it quite immediately. She took my photos and I learned things from that too. We went to numerous photo-hunting sessions and were pretty invested in taking Instagrammable photos.

When we're not taking pictures and posing, we talked about films. She recommended me to a lot of films and introduced me to celebrated directors like Christoper Nolan. When she finished her program six months later, not only I got myself a new best friend, I also got me a new interest, a new escape. In the following academic year, I took an elective class from the department next door called 'Cinematography'. And boy was I amazed.

Part Three

Years have passed and I continue learning to love what I do. I continue learning how to love films and cameras better, as well as not to pay too much heed to the doubts and is-it-good-enough mentality.

I learn to leverage my past weaknesses to love my passion and to not let anyone including myself--especially myself, question if I was good enough to do it.

In the end, I use photography and films to encourage me to start writing again.

Through films, I taught myself to express my opinions towards them, what I get from them, and shared it online for others to see. Through photography, I taught myself to get my thoughts out of my system using the photographs as an inspiration and let others read them. I now have more courage to write. Everything has come full circle.

I still have a long way ahead of me to figure out if I would find my place in my community through pictures or words. I don't know if I would reach any level of expertise in either photography or writing. I don't even know if I'd still enjoy doing them 10 years from now.

But one thing I do know is that right now, they make me happy. That everytime I feel down and tired, my mind will find comfort in them.

A note...

Finding a passion is not easy. I have friends who told me they haven't quite sure of what it is that they really like. They said they have equal feelings towards each hobby they have chosen and couldn't figure out which one they like the most. They have trouble figuring out something they want to do.

So, how do you find your passion? How do you know that you like something more than the others?

I think the only way to know is to do nothing and keep living. The key is not in trying everything in search of it, but rather in enjoying life and everything that you do. It is true that passion makes life more fulfilling, doing something with love can lead to many positive outcomes. But you can't sacrifice all the time that you have only to obsess about finding the answer to "what is my passion?"

Here's a full paragraph from Medium's Stop Trying to Find Your Passion:

Instead of chasing a passion and invoking this FOMO (fear of missing out), niche yourself down in your work. Niche down until you get to the point where you can make progress towards the achievement of something better than what you have now. It doesn’t have to be a Life’s Task. It doesn’t have to be a passion. It doesn’t even have to be what you want to build your entire career around. Focusing on work that allows you to experience a feeling of growth provides growth.

I believe that passion comes from a discovery, but I disagree if the discovery had to sacrifice the rest of one's lives.

You may think that I'm one of the lucky people who have the privilege of finding what they love without ever spending a huge amount of time on it. But the truth is? I'm not. Nobody is.

Yes, I was very fortunate to be introduced to something I could deeply love. But the process wasn't as simple as someone hands me a trail of shish kebab that I immediately enjoy and would prefer to eat the rest of my life (which wouldn't be long since the diet might give me cancer).

It involved questioning about why do I like it? or could I ever be good at it? and a lot of contemplating about the pass event with writing that might just reoccur. It took a lot of practice of ignoring my own doubts and the negative thoughts about other people, to find goodness behind critics, and to train myself to keep going despite everything else.

Photography and films didn't find me. I found them and made them my favorite. And I promise myself that I won't let other people telling me why I shouldn't do it.

Passion is just a word. A word that represents the effervescence, the love, of doing something. Focusing on a word stops you from seeing the whole of it, the tip of an iceberg. It's how your heart feels that matters.

Forget about answering the question of what is your passion with one answer like other people. Stop doubting if your favorite hobby won't afford you a BMW or an interview invitation to one of those late-night shows.

Maybe your passion is not writing, solving math problems, or collecting shining rocks.

Maybe your passion is growth.

Maybe your passion is life.

Enjoy everything that you do. Be it only one or a dozen at once. And most importantly, don't let other people's thoughts affect how you think about enjoying your life.

/End/

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Jakarta, June 6