Falsehood of Passion
In my grandparents' generation, being responsible (dutiful) was everything. I lived in a house with all four grandparents, so I know this quite well. All aspects from love to life-long compromises for that generation were probably held by the single glue - responsibility. I don't know if that's the way to do things. I am of the generation that we are supposed to follow our passion, chase dreams, and so on. While growing up, the typical plot of the "good" films was based on someone who enjoys the trivially defined material world but realizes that their life is boring. They then discover some experience or an adventure that changes their life. And the movie ends. As if the discovery of passion is supposed to be the ending.
I know people who dropped out of college to pursue something else, and many more who abandoned their careers after earning enough to follow their dream. I don't judge them in any way. Judgment necessitates some crime, and they aren't capable of it. It's usually the engineers wanting to be stand-up comics, the MBAs wanting to be writers, and all the kids wanting to be photographers or something. It is a path from mechanics to the arts. As if that's the only path that passion knows. Frankly, passion doesn't care, and it doesn't worship a god of one kind. This now-common trajectory is less about passion and dreams and more about a lack of self-awareness in emerging adulthood. People don't leave engineering because they are passionate about writing; they give it up because they think they could be better at writing than they were ever at engineering. They took up engineering because everyone told them, because that's what their peers were doing, because their parents didn't know better, and because they were too young or foolish to think for themselves. Such writers might be useful, but they are merely finding another talent to capitalize on, trying to correct the initial mishap. It's not about the new passion; it's about desperation to make up for the years lost doing something that you never thought you are supposed to be doing. Their passion isn't irresponsible (as it is usually believed to be in tales), they are just waiting for a profitable opportunity.
What happens after the movie ends is that it's less about telling jokes and more about selling shows, less about writing books, and more about signing publishers, and it's never about taking pictures, it is just about that eternal glamour of being able to take pictures. If you can't see it right away, it's not passion. Passion is quite visible, like in van Gogh. He struggled to be a theologist repeatedly, always, and never left it on his own until he was thrown out from everywhere. Then someone else discovered him as an artist. van Gogh didn't think of himself as an artist. He didn't have to talk himself into following his passion. He didn't switch from theology to painting out of boredom or convenience. His passion was finding a resting place for itself. His painting was an accident in adulthood, not a result of his unaware teenage. Passion was always there, and when the world saw it, they saw it. It might seem terribly harsh, but passion is less about the happy ending where all good things happen in the last five minutes and more about keeping yourself away from Van Gogh's final fate while taking the path that he traveled on.
From an unnecessary devotion to the responsibility to an escape from it in the name of passion and dreams, what a journey time takes disguised as a culture!