Passion

Nearly everyone I have known or will know passionately avoids experiencing passion - a shameful trend, in my humble opinion. Ironically, it is as common an explicit requirement in the job market nowadays as it is inappropriate - as in, "ACME Corp. seeks experienced marketing executive with a passion for social media," or somesuch nonsense. My advice is to be wary of any partner, whether commercial or intimate, who demands passion from you.

Of course I know that folks are trying to describe something other than passion when they utter the word, something like joy (which may also be inappropriate professionally, as in "passionate about law enforcement (or technology, or cheese, etc.)"), or at least enthusiam. If they think this, then I have to wonder what they imagine compassion might be and/or why anyone would want theirs. If this makes you wonder what passionate sex might feel like, then don't rush to judgment but read on and allow me to tease your imagination.

As with most members of this problematic list, the best way to avoid misusing the word passion is not to use it at all. The same holds for compassion, which, as you may come to see, is seldom sincere and amounts to little more than an invasion of another's privacy. This is not to say that these are bad words denoting bad deeds (for they are not); rather, the integrity needed to find the right word - to mean precisely what you say - demands virtue, which is a reward to everyone it touches.

Many folks seem unpleasantly surprised to learn that passion means suffering or endurance, for they tend to backpedal if caught using the word in another sense. It derives from the Late Latin -passionem (nominative -passio), which conveys a sense of pain - possibly even virtue - but not pleasure. This may explain the apparent oxymoron with which I began this essay and/or that latent hint of some vital difference between that sex which is passionate and that which is 'unusually exciting'.

Taking the word literally (which is always a good place to start), only sadists and masochists would use passion to describe joy. Though the pre-Latin root derives from a Proto-Indo-European verb for -to hurt, the Latinism concentrates on martyrdom. The endurance aspect of suffering suggests that it must be both long (duration) and hard (durable) to qualify as passion, as opposed to simply stubbing your toe or tolerating your mother in-law.

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum: the same Late Latin -passio was used to render the Greek pathos, a mere homonym with overtones of calamity (literally 'that which befalls') and the arousal of pity. The sense of passion as sexual arousal is less than 500 years old and that of enthusiasm, less than 400. Yet the so-called passion-flower gets it name from this same recent era - not because flowers are sex organs and not because passiflora is an aphrodisiac (which it is not), but for its resemblance to a crown of thorns.

I am a happy exponent of passion - anyone who knows me will confirm that I regard intentional suffering (and not martyrdom) as one of the three means by which to awaken and explore human potential. Meanwhile, passion is casually misunderstood and earnestly taken in vain, sometimes to absurd extremes, just as is compassion, whose true meaning is shared suffering and not sentimental pity. So when someone asks me, no matter how innocently, "Are you passionate about ... (fill in the blank)?", the word (not the thing!) sounds at once trite and vulgar.

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Idiot

One of the niceties I notice between my real dialogues and my various social media adventures is that in one arena I am fairly often called a/n (insert salacious expletive at will) idiot and in the other, never. Any guesses as to which is which? I suspect it is a mere tactic, used more in fear of cognitive dissonance than as a measure of my stupidity.

Nowadays, it's a vulgar word synonymous with 'dumbshit', 'fuckwit' or, simply, 'moron'. The suggestion is that the person so designated lacks intelligence. Although intent to slander may be clear, the most accurate or effective choice of words is not.

Chances are good that if you've been called an idiot, and especially if you've ever called anyone else an idiot, then you don't know what one is and that you, yourself, are an idiot. The confusion arises because idiocy has more to do with property than with intelligence. Indeed, some of the smartest individuals are complete idiots.

Idiot derives from the Greek -idios, meaning 'private', 'one's own', or 'proper to one's self'. With relatives including idiom and idiosyncrasy, it has a peculiar ring. As you can imagine, idiots have their own way of seeing and doing things; they live in a world of their own.

The ancient Athenians used the word scornfully to distinguish idiots from citizens, on account of the latter's participation in common, public (i.e. civilized) life. It was considered selfish to abstain from the requirements of citizenship, which, besides correct birth, were education and service. The implication is that to be an idiot is 'to value individual satisfaction more highly than the common good'.

Idiot entered the Latin language when Roman soldiers slaughtered the Athenian armies, the latter composed mostly of private citizens unschooled in combat with only a few genuine officers. Private was the name given to the lowest rank to describe men who (briefly) fought in their own clumsy way, and the tradition continues. In his own inept attempt to classify varieties of mental retardation, Dr. Henry Goddard confused lack of education and/or the lowest military rank with IQ levels as measured by a peculiar (and flawed) theory of 'mental ages', with idiot at the bottom of the scale (aged less than three years).

The most notorious idiot in English literature must be Sherlock Holmes - and for a real case study, consider Howard Hughes. Maybe instead of calling someone an idiot in a moment of otherwise justifiable anger, you might instead point out that they have their own private understanding of the matter and/or that they may be a closet sociopath. If you feel that you are being called an idiot unjustly, you might simply smile and say, "And you, Dr. Watson, are feeble-minded."

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