How A Failed Exam And A Tea-Stained Document Reignited My Passion For Writing
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.
Lord Byron, CLXXVIII, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, 1812-1818.
I’m sat in my least favourite teacher’s class, slumped on an uncomfortable blue plastic chair, legs sliding out under the cheap plastic desk. In my hands is a small, battered book. I flick through the 200-page literary classic. I have little interest in it. I’m discouraged, not because I don’t like books and writing, but because of my teacher. I love reading and writing. In my bedroom, books line the shelves, some Jack Reacher, some Harry Potter, some history and some books on adventure. One of the walls is painted in charcoal. My friends and I draw with chalk. We’re teenagers, so a lot of what we write is rude and a lot of what we draw is penises.
Around the penises are made up characters. Pirate Pete with his peg leg, hat and sword; Ice Cream Steve in his van and pet Dog. One day we type up the Esteemed Document, a ‘historical’ charter laying out the made-up honorary titles we give ourselves. We stain it with tea and burn the corners, ageing it into mock history. We are fired up by writing and creating. Some of my newer friends have commented that we sound like the Inbetweeners, maybe they’re right.
The Esteemed Document from the 2000s – an insight into what teenage boys find amusing.
I’m discouraged in Mr. Thornpin’s class. He poured water on the fire of my creativity. I’m unhappy because I love writing and he tells me I can’t. I don’t remember his words, but I remember the corners of his mouth flickering upwards into a smirk as he tells me I failed an exam.
I am sure if you reflect, you have a story like that of your own. Where your passion was trodden on, squished, cast aside because it didn’t fit into the neat little box of the curriculum that tired and overworked teachers had to educate us in.
How seemingly insignificant is my story above? A tea-stained document, chalk drawings? They are insignificant moments, but remembered, they are tiny sparks that contribute to passion.
Look out for those moments of rapture
Some of us, such as Leonardo da Vinci, are fortunate enough to have an unbroken cycle of passion from childhood to adulthood. Leonardo’s father remarked on how he loved painting and sculpting as a child and as soon as Leonardo was old enough, his father took him to apprentice at a master painter’s studio in Florence.
Yet for most of us, we have a prolonged sabbatical from our passion. Life gets in the way. Your hiatus might be 12 months or 20 years. But, what can we do when we lose that spark, that knowledge of what we truly love? We have to search for it. We have to move around the world with our eyes wide open. As Lord Byron wrote 200 years ago, we have to pay attention for those moments of rapture.
Cycling through Langelinieparken in Copenhagen’s sun this summer, Liv was captivated by the cherry blossom. As we passed, she slowed down, pulling her bike to the side of the cycle path. She couldn’t help but cut off our journey to be underneath the trees and take photos. Rapture. The same thing happened when we walked through Benjakitti Park in Bangkok – her mind was captivated by the flowers blooming in the Thai spring. Rapture.
When we notice something, a moment of passion, a feeling of rapture, we have to note it down. We build our own library of love.
Search back through your life for passion
But, we don’t have to wait to build a library of love. We can mine our past for sparks of passion. Take Pharrell Williams. In his biopic Piece by Piece, a documentary made entirely in Lego, he recalls how he played drums at his grandma’s house on her living room pillows. When grandma found him, she was so impressed she bought him a second-hand snare drum. It was a turning point, when love of music became the ability to make it.
When you search back through your life, what moments filled you with intensely positive emotion? These moments, small drips, when captured can point to our passion. I have written before about driving across Namibia on our honeymoon, listening to Greenlights by Matthew McConnaughey. This was a moment of rapture for me. Here was an intensely philosophical guy, capturing his life in journals since he was 20, he inspired me to pick up a pen and do the same. This was the first time I’d picked up a pen to write something meaningful in the last fifteen years. That moment of inspiration, unplanned, random, and seemingly insignificant led me to where I am right now, writing this blog, writing my current Project X, a book.
Your Project X does not have to be a book, or even something creative. It can be starting a family, making an impact in your community, building an amazing corporate career. Throughout your life you will have multiple Project X’s. Think of them as foothills that build into mountains that must be crossed to reach your Wildest Dream. This Project X is a component of purposeful work, itself an ingredient to a fulfilled life.
How do we find our Project X? We find it by understanding who we are – know thyself. Know thyself means understanding your passions, those moments of rapture. It means understanding what you’re good at, your strengths. It means fighting for your beliefs, your values. Over the next two weeks, note down those things that captivate you. Can you speak to a parent or childhood friend, asking them, ‘what was I captivated by as a child?’
Find your Project X
So, I have had a 14-year hiatus from what I care about, writing. You’ll have to forgive me if my skills lack right now, but I will get there. You can get there too. You can find your Project X.
If our meaning in life comes from our purposeful work and our purpose comes from our passion; then our passion comes from those small, seemingly insignificant moments of rapture. A moment of rapture can redirect a life.
So, here’s to you, Mr. Thornpin. You trod on dreams but planted deeper roots of passion. Thank you for the pain. It is feeding my purpose. And to you, reader, what moments of rapture are buried in your past? What might they be pointing you toward?
