the juvenile delinquent
passions vs. obsessions
🎧 listen in spotify
“you should send tadz to bomb camp.”
“bomb camp?”
“ya, i heard about it on the radio yesterday — room, board, and all the dynamite you can use.” chirps phil, my best friend’s dad.
“…absolutely not” replies mine.
just like that, my dreams of bomb camp were extinguished.
well, “official” bomb camp.
see, i was already running a bomb camp of my own — though with significantly less adult oversight — all on phil’s property. which may have explained his eagerness to get me shipped off to a proper bomb camp.
he had seen one too many blown-out mole holes littered across their 40 acres.
or maybe he noticed his dwindling stockpile of metal piping as we repurposed it for our ~extracurricular activities~
i’ve never had a capital P passion.
but obsessions? i’ve had a few.
from age 8-14, explosives were my obsession. just after my R/C car era, but before the apple fanboy phase.
i’ve noticed we celebrate passion but look down on obsessions.
obsessions are for freaks. passions are for cool creatives.
but passion feels like such a high bar. something i have to commit to for the rest of my life.
obsessions are more transient.
they could last a lifetime or just a weekend.
what was the last thing you were obsessed by?
for me, it was writing.
for the first 2 months, it lit a fire in me.
i consumed everything i could on the topic: podcasts, books, blogs. i’d wake at 4:30am out of excitement to write — no alarm needed.
then came the trough of sorrow.
it was unreasonable to expect that same fire to last forever.
but there was something else too.
it was being taken from me. co-opted.
it shifted from something i was doing for myself, to something i was doing with an audience in mind.
audience capture is the term for this. and anyone who shares their work publicly must grapple with it.
the secret to parenting
bestselling children’s book author soman chainani has a secret to parenting — one he’s shared with many parents — though few ever listen…
when your kid takes initiative and does something on their own — making their bed or they start working out after school.
do. not. mention. it.
don’t say it’s great you made the bed. or that’s so cool that you’re working out.
do not.
then it’s your thing.
that means every time they make their bed, they're now thinking of your approval and little by little it'll stop them from doing it. because its now become your thing. leave it.
it’s their thing.
this is how a lot of fledgling obsessions get killed.
it’s what was happening with my writing.
fortunately, my dad never told me “wow tadzio — it’s so great you blew up the neighbor’s mailbox!”
had he done that, it’s unlikely the obsession would have lasted 6 years.
i’m pleased to report the fire (writing, not explosives) is back.
but to get there i had to right the ship — reconnect with the reason i’m doing this. which is (selfishly) for me. chasing down ideas, thoughts and sometimes gags. if people get something out of it — that’s a bonus.
lower the bar
if you’re still trying to figure out your “passion” maybe forget all that.
lower the bar.
it doesn’t need to be something you’ve done all your life or intend to spend the rest of it on. it can be a fling. a baby obsession.
but protect it. keep it yours. don’t let anyone take it away.
🎞️ from the camera roll:
🔗 links to the interwebs:
1.
this man is OBSSESED. and the people he reads about all day are equally OBSESSED.
maybe you’ll see parts of yourself in him and the people he studies. maybe not. either way — i couldn’t think of a better example of what obsession looks like.
///
2.
this is a controversial film.
a lot of people are upset about how instructive it is. literally — how to blow up a pipeline.
but it’s also a great film. 95% on rotten tomatoes.
their bomb recipe is true to life. the exact instructions i read about on bomb forums as a 13-year-old. fortunately, my obsession fizzled out just before reaching graduate-level bomb-making.
❝a cheeky lil quote❞
“if you want to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent.”
― yvon chouinard
that’s all.
talk soon,
-t
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The point about praising actions is interesting. While the compliment might be well-intended, it might unintentionally make the kid seek approval and acknowledgment for whatever they do in the future. Such a tricky balance. (Father of one here.)
Nice one👌