This week I started reading the book Mastery by Robert Greene.
What does it take to become a master? Well for starters, it starts at childhood. It starts with passion for doing something that you really enjoy doing. Children have a natural inclination to do what they like to do. Unfortunately as adults, we like to coerce them into doing the things they “ought” to do instead. We do it because we want what is best for them. We figure that conformity is best. As a result, we take them away from the things they enjoy doing and give them other tasks for their own good.
To be a master, you have to reconnect with that love for doing something, like you once did as a child. You have to find your passion in a field and go after it with all the passion of a religious zealot. It is more difficult as an adult. But even as adults, we still have the ability to hearken back to those days of old when wonder sparked within us a desire to know more. We have the ability to rekindle that fire and begin again.
As a father, I have to remember to encourage this with my son. As a somewhat responsible adult, I have become enamored with responsibility, duty, and what ought to be done. And though I like that structure and feel free working within those boundaries, I want him to find his own discipline while at the same time pursuing his passions. It is a balance I am hoping to find not only with my son but with myself.
To forget one’s purpose is the commonest form of stupidity. –Friedrich Nietzche
It would be stupid to forget the reason why I am on this earth. It is a miracle that I am even here, and to squander it would be a shame. This week, I am going back in time to remember what I used to be passionate about and how they line up with what I am doing today. In the days to come, I am going to look at the things my son is passionate about and how I can encourage him to explore those passions.
Farewell.
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