Passionista by Luke James

I lack passion.

What I mean by that is I have been TOLD that I lack passion.

The first time I heard this was about a month ago. A co-worker was prattling about his love for fifteenth century Flemish art and made a comment about how the triptych was used as an avenue to express social and political comment. I sat behind him making hand signals to indicate my disdain for his masturbatory opinion- seriously, who name checks Hieronymus Bosch when their idea of a perfect Sunday "arvo" is nine $2 pots of VB? When I articulated my distaste for his ex-hippie, ex-uni-student, quasi-bourgeois-Northern-Renaissance-for-the-masses love for said art, another co-worker, a close personal friend, dropped an accusation- "Luke, you don’t have any passion".

My jaw gaped. Me? A man who wept openly during the final scenes of 'The Bridges of Madison County'? A man who can't speak when he hears 'Into Temptation' by Crowded House because the love and confusion and sadness and overwhelming Catholic guilt stab him in the guts like a double-serve of unrequited love? A man who celebrated Steven Gerrard's 35 yard piledriver in the 93rd minute of the 2006 FA Cup final so hard he fell off his bar stool and injured a French woman?

That's right. Me. Passionless little old me.

Two weeks ago on a lazy Sunday morning I was talking to someone else. A friend. A girl. OK, a girl I like. Well, a woman really… anyway, the topic came up again.

I think I mentioned that I didn’t love my job. And that I didn't love food as much as she did. And that I hadn't touched my guitar in a few months (this is typically a sign that all is not well in Lukey-land).

She actually gasped. It was audible. Kind of wheezy, but the vocal chords were definitely engaged. You know at 0:44 of 'Jesus Walks' where Kanye says '…top floor, the view alone would leave you breathless, mmhhh, trying to catch it, mmhhh…'? It sounded like that.

"You lack passion!", she yelled. The tone was accusatory. She repeated it, but this time triumphantly- "You lack passion!".

"No, I don't", came my ever-so-witty retort.

"You do, you do, you do". It had a certain singsong quality to it, like an Irish accent. Unfortunately, like an Irish accent, it was also very annoying.

I had to disagree again. Then she came at me with logic.

"In the last 15 minutes you have said 'I don't care' at least six times. You don't care about anything".

I did my best to rebut her argument, and what followed went more or less like this:

Me: I'm passionate about music.

Her: Your passionate about pretension.

Me: I'm passionate about clothes.

Her: You just want to look like the fifth Beatle. You're NOT the fifth Beatle.

Me: I'm passionate about football.

Her: Pffft.

And that, pretty much, was where my defensive rally ended. I was out of ammo and I was out of steam. It was my Waterloo, just with less blood and silly hats.


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Since then I quit my job, bailed on my life here in Melbourne and joined Greenpeace. They do a lot of great stuff, fight for a lot of good causes. I have a lot of respect for what they do. I don't LOVE it, but it's ok. I also play in a band with a few of the guys on the ship, mostly U2 covers though. Still, it's nice to be passionate about what I’m doing. Well, sort of.