Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it.
Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
(Howard Thurman)
I am very partial to enthusiasts. It almost doesn’t matter what their passions are. It’s the ardor itself that sparkles and attracts. We are drawn to bright eyed enthusiasm, and some of the voltage, nearly discernible, rubs off on us. It’s unmistakable, a two-way thing. We perceive it, are drawn to it, reflect it, and catch it. We are ignite-able.
Here are some of my favorite enthusiasts, disparate, widely-scattered, but shining. I’ll bet you know some, too.
An attorney of my acquaintance grew up in a musical family and is passionate about the violin. For years, he presented an annual private program, performing favorite chamber pieces and commenting with wit on the lives and dispositions of composers of the canon. Spellbinding, because he was an amateur in the truest sense, one who loves the subject.
Traveling in Vegas once, I wandered into the back of a body-building competition and watched the posing, fascinated. An offstage builder smiled and said to me, “this is a very good family sport” and, at that moment, I was convinced. Enthusiasts can be found everywhere.
The operator of a vintage sawmill, who spent a summer day at a small-town Antique Power Show, telling passers-by about the place of the sawmill in frontier history, and demonstrating over and over again. I brought home a piece of slag, an edge, rank with new wood smell.
A woman composer, magnetic by nature, who curates and introduces a classical music performance series, bouncing into view with an enormous smile saying “Hello! And welcome!”
I have a friend in the horse industry; her enthusiasms are the arcane details of breeding programs, the bright soft look of a new-born foal, and the consumption of evening champagne.
A planetary geologist I met at a Dark Sky Festival, who captivated deep winter audiences on a night when the far northern sky was completely obscured by clouds, and un-see-able. She is the Director of International Observe The Moon Night. An hour in her company, and you will long to depart this planet for elsewhere. She, no doubt, will be on board.
A plein-air painter who thrills to the impossible task of representing the ever-changing sky.
A tour guide at the Atomic Testing Museum, still wearing his 1984 ID badge, wants to tell us everything. Gesturing a group into a faux bunker and closing the door, he looks back over his shoulder and calls “Don’t worry about the flash… you’ll be fine!” The box shook and rumbled and when he let us out, he told a story about a Japanese fishing vessel which once was accidentally caught downrange of a nuclear test. “Everyone on board was dead in three days!” he reported cheerfully. “This way, please!”
A young woman setting out on a fifty-day bike ride on the Pacific Coast Highway to raise awareness of suicide, having lost her veteran brother last year. She is fairly shining with health and eagerness, and mission. She wants to tell the story.
Enthusiasm is transmissable and, I would argue, life-giving. It is not the same as expertise, or charm, or even magnetism. It is different from the impulse to educate. It is, in a way, a child’s capacity for engagement and wonder. It is a natural bubbler, as contagious as laughter, and the antipode of boredom in all its insidious manifestations. No yawn about it.
It’s a gift that you have, and it’s also a gift you can give. Love something, come alive with it, and then tell the world about it. There are nearly eight billion people on this planet. Your cohort is out there. Go find them. You’ll have a lot to talk about.