I have learned over the years that doing things that you are passionate about is very important.
This was brought home to me earlier this week when I had lunch with a long-time friend of mine who I worked with during my time at Sun Microsystems. We were comparing job experiences and she remarked that every time she took a job purely because of the money that it ended up being a mistake.
Of course, I recognize that acting on that understanding is not always easy.
Regardless, if one is going to try and stay focused on what they are passionate about requires as a prerequisite having something that they are passionate about. It turns out that this is not always so easy either. Sorting out what is important to you and what isn’t is often difficult to do.
It is made even more difficult since there are always family and friends who will tell you that the goal or activity you really want to focus on is foolish or a waste of time.
And that brings me to the concert I am dragging Ellen to tomorrow/Friday night.
In 2005, a movie called Serenity came out, http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/serenity/. I liked the trailer, it was sort of a science fiction thing and seemed entertaining. We went and I loved it, the rest of family tolerated it. It told the story of a bunch of disparate, broken characters who were wrestling with how to the right thing in a difficult time.
Set in the future after a civil war which the good guys lost to a central Alliance, it was created by Joss Whedon, of Buffy the Vampire fame (among other things) and combined elements of Science Fiction and the classical Western. I found it entertaining, funny, sad, and heroic.
I then found out it had been based on a TV show, called Firefly, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_(TV_series), which was on the air less than one full year and then was canceled. I bought the DVD’s, something I rarely do, and watched them all like the TV show even better than the movie.
This Science Fiction show had great writing, and the Western elements included carrying cattle on the space ship, the characters spoke expletives in Chinese, and were always quotable:
Wash: “Psychic, though? That sounds like something out of science fiction.”
Zoe: “We live in a space ship, dear.”
As some of the readers of this blog; well, if there WERE readers of this blog; would know, I mentioned how much I liked the TV show and movie when I started work as the CIO at the US Department of Transportation, which lead to showing episodes once a month at lunch attended by staff across the Department.
Since then once a year I attend the annual reshowing of the movie Serenity at the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse, http://www.arlingtondrafthouse.com/, used as a fund raiser for Equality Now, http://www.equalitynow.org/, and other charities.
Well, at the 2010 showing, there was a singer, Marion Call, who writes songs about Firefly and Serenity, one of her best known and well worth listening to is In the Black, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYm_0AmlXsU. She also is the composer of The Nerd Anthem, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLBb58iHiRA&feature=related. She not only sang about one of my favorite things but was actually talented.
Well.
And thus poor Ellen and I will find ourselves at one of the things I am passionate about Friday night at Jammin Java in Vienna VA, where not only will Marian Call, http://mariancall.com/, be performing but also two other acts; Molly Lewis, http://sweetafton23.com/, and two sisters, the Doubleclicks, a self-described nerd duo, http://www.thedoubleclicks.com/.
They are all part of a tour, The Ladies of Ragnorak, https://www.facebook.com/events/253501854752480/. BUT if you do not have tickets you are out of luck, it has long been sold out.
So this is just one of the ways I try to follow my passion(s). Of course, Ellen points out that it might be a ‘good thing’ if I would have some limit to the number. Now when do you think Ellen would tolerate going to Disneyworld again …