Virginia Woolf, p.1, Passion for Living

"My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery - always buzzing, humming, soaring roaring diving, and then buried in mud. And why? What's this passion for?"

No matter what anyone says, Woolf is a great writer. This question she asks, "What's this passion for?" is one I have asked myself often. The thing is, the passion I feel and I imagine the passion that Woolf feels, is not connected to anything particular. For instance, I know people that are passionate about very specific things and I cannot imagine what that is like. Someone I know is passionate about the poor in Africa, specifically Sudan and Uganda. How do you decide that? It's just weirdly specific.

The way I feel is more of a general passion, maybe regarding emotion and life, and maybe this is why I feel compelled to write. Freaking people always ask, "What do you write about?" and seriously what kind of question is that? I write about... life, but it hurts to say something that cliche.

My sister has a passion for unborn children that may or may not be aborted. She has a passion for something. All I have is passion streaming through my brains and heart valves without landing on anything. Why?

It is like I have no direction, but not for the lack of looking for some. I've tried to ground myself in something specific, but I eventually get bored. If anything, my passion has something to do with being ungrounded, some would say free.