This question is for my readers — writers or non-writers: what makes you passionate?

No, this is not about sex — or it could be, I guess; I just don’t want to hear about it. This is about what fires you up, inspires you, drives you to create, or to dance, or play with your kids, or even to sell Mary Kay (if you’re out there and reading, Cassandra!)

Passion is not the act itself; it’s the thoughts and feelings about the act — for example, “I feel passionate when I read my girlfriend’s texts and I want -” (No, that’s sexy, whoever of you thought that. We’re skipping that today.)

Let’s try this again:  “I feel passionate about trains — it’s the history, it’s the very size of the engines, the glamor of the old lines in the Golden Age of trains. I love building my own elaborate layouts for HO gauge and building scenery and picking out my rolling stock …” (Note: I had to research this section to write it. I do not have elaborate layouts in my house.)

Not everyone describes their passions in such glowing terms. Introverts tend to keep their passions to themselves. Some people are afraid to describe their passions at all, because they think their passions are too strange– there are a few that fit that category, I’ll admit; Ed Gein’s* sewing projects, for example.

We need to know what makes us passionate, because that’s what makes our lives magical, what motivates us to create, to excel, to grow.

What makes you passionate? Feel free to jump in!

* If you don’t know who Ed Gein is, look him up. He inspired both Leatherface in Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Norman Bates in Psycho.