What is the difference between passion and obsession? Are they different?
When does passion become an obsession?
What happens when one is consumed by one's own passion?
These are many of the questions that I kept asking myself when I wondered if my son was harboring a passion or an obsession - first with television, then with Lego and then now with the iPad.
Our journey into homeschooling started off with him just sitting and watching TV the whole day long, day after day and month after month. I guess it must have been a sea change from a totally structured day at school, into one where he had to make choices every moment of the day. I frankly don't know what he learned in those months of watching TV almost all the time. I guess I don't even need to know actually, because he was happy and that triggered many questions that led us to explore other things.
That 'lost' look, which one usually associates with someone who is 'lost' in his world of obsessions, was not there....rather he was engaged but totally immersed in what he was watching - smiling, nodding or shaking his head, laughing at a joke or totally focused on what was being shown on TV.
In the beginning, it was very hard for me, with all my fears and pre-conditioned ways of thinking and reacting, to give him the space to explore what he wanted to. So there was a lot of controlling from both me and my husband as we tried to come to terms with what we thought was becoming or could become an obsession. By doing that, we were unconsciously feeding our fears that grew and loomed over all of us, making it easier in fact for my son to fall over to the other side. It was only when we let go of what we thought it was leading to, or becoming, that we were able to see it differently and understand it.
It was his explorations with Lego that actually made us understand the difference between passion and obsession. When he was into his Lego, usually while building or creating something huge, he would set up his own creative space......he would get organised by turning on the computer, going to the website where he found instructions, ask me to get something to munch to keep nearby, put on his favourite music on iTunes, adjust the volume to the perfect pitch, and get ready to get started building. For the next few hours and sometimes the whole day, this would be the scene - he would prance and dance around the room, to the beat of the music, singing some of the songs, while finding his Lego blocks and building something. If he was too engrossed in building or wanted to finish up to a point, he would sometimes ask me to feed him his lunch or snack. Sometimes, he would be so engrossed that he would forget that he was hungry or that he needed to go to the bathroom even, and would have meltdowns when it got too much to handle. Those were (and still continue to be at times) very challenging times for us, as he would not like reminders from us.
I remember the time when he wanted us to buy the Taj Mahal Lego set. Until the time that he wanted it, he would admire it at the toy shop window in the mall we used to go to for his Lego. But he would never ask us for it; he would just stand and look at it intently every single time and talk about every detail. Finally one day, when he asked us to get it for him, and we did, he was so thrilled; he spent three days continuously on that building project, stopping only to sleep! He was like a little artist - he would wake up and go straight to his room to get building, and would ask me to feed him all his meals in the day, and then stop late in the night, to sleep just enough to get rejuvenated for the next day's work.
Recently, over the last few months, he has moved on from Lego to the iPad. I saw a similar pattern with the iPad too as it was with Lego earlier. When he is into exploring the iPad, he is doing only that and sometimes nothing else. With the iPad I saw a lot of anger, irritation and low tolerance levels to everything that was said or what happened outside of him. He would also not respond at all most times if I asked him about food or going to the loo or anything else that I had to communicate with him. Writing notes to him to read also did not help. He would be very engaged with the iPad, but would be lost to everything else inside and around him. And because of that, he would get lost in the different signals that his body gave him - totally confused - which would eventually lead to a huge meltdown, with too many things to handle at one time.
It was then that we had a discussion with him about obsession and passion....asking questions, finding signals in our own selves, sharing thoughts and ideas....He asked us if we had any obsessions and how we tackled them. I shared with him how I was at one point addicted to betel nut and could not do without it, and how I finally decided one day in my mind that I would not eat it anymore and thereby overcame that feeling. I also shared with him how his father was addicted to smoking when he was much younger; so he went and asked him how he had given that up, and discovered that he had done so in a similar way by exercising control over his mind.......he listened patiently to our stories and this is what he came up with finally - he said that what he was passionate about was Lego, but that the iPad was now becoming more like an obsession, because he wanted to stop sometimes, but could not get his body to listen to him. He then came up with his own idea of setting an alarm on my mobile every time, to remind him when to stop.
So we tried that out for some days. Some days it worked, and some days it didn't, and after a point he didn't want to use that alarm anymore. He went back to playing on the iPad for most of the day. But something inside him had changed. He was more aware of his body signals and had fewer meltdowns. However, the irritation and anger continued. Sometimes, it was more when he stopped playing it, as he said he did not know what else to do. So then, we tackled that feeling of not knowing what to do and boredom, by voicing out how he was feeling and talking about it.
A month or so ago, a good friend of mine visited us and spent a few hours with us. While she was leaving, she shared her fears about the use of gadgets and how most often parents make the mistake of getting one of those and then kids get hooked to it so much that they cannot do without it, so much so that it becomes an obsession. I shared with her my thoughts on this - that I find the computer, TV and iPad great tools for learning independently, especially for a self-learner like my son, who would rather learn from something like that, than from a person. I also shared with her the discussion we had about obsessions with our son, to which she said : "But do we have to wait for them to get into the trap of an obsession and then find a way out?"
That was a question which stayed with me. I pondered long and hard about it. Finally I let my mind rest in peace with what we have chosen to do as a family. I know that my son learns by doing and on his own, even if it means falling down a number of times and getting hurt. So this is the way for us now I feel......to go into the darkness of an obsession too in order to understand it and come out of it on one's own......to go into the fire of passion and come out with it in one's flesh, blood and spirit, alive and blazing! I do feel that there must be a lot more learning when one does it this way....as one has lived it.
So then, what is the difference between a passion and an obsession? These are my thoughts...
Passion and obsession I feel, motivate us to take risks, to push ourselves, to make sacrifices and even go away from the norm to achieve what we want, without any expectation of extrinsic rewards. They drive us to the edge sometimes, but it is only there that one can feel the difference. Passion creates, while obsession destroys....passion involves an inner drive that pulls one towards the brink of creation, while obsession involves a kind of drifting, to escape into another world.....passion liberates a person, and helps him build relationships, while obsession confines....passion allows one to be on the edge and yet create and sustain joy...and find the balance.
Over the last few weeks, there has been a huge change in the way my son has been handling the iPad. He no longer sits with it the whole day long and then has meltdowns because he is hungry or tired or for some other reason like boredom. He no longer needs an external reminder to stop when he wants to. He just puts it down when he feels like and moves on to something else.....and that something else has not been Lego!
I don't know what the shift has been inside him and how or when it actually happened. But I know for sure that something has changed and he has made different choices than the ones he was making earlier.
