Today is Holy Wednesday, the middle of the Holy Week, and the Divine Passion reaches its dramatic peak. During the evening of Holy Wednesday, the Vesper of Holy Thursday is chanted with a central theme the feet ablution of the Apostles by Jesus Christ, the Last Supper, the Prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane and the Betrayal by Judas.
On Holy Monday, through a variety of theatre games and activities, we ritually celebrated the Easter Holy Days in our Theatre Games Workshop. Our “Last Supper” and “Resurrection” took place. Each participant had to bring with him/her something that symbolizes for him/her the Easter Holy Days, such as an object, a text, a taste, a smell, a flower, a song, etc. After forming a cycle, each participant had the chance to say whatever he/she wished to share with the others concerning the Easter Holy Days, him/herself or the group. Then, we raised a discussion on what all these objects represent for us, and influenced by all those stimuli, continued interpreting the word “Passion“.
WHAT IS ACTUALLY PASSION?
Passion, such a small word but with such a big meaning, coexists with Life and Death. Passion, derived from the Latin verb patere meaning to suffer, is a very strong feeling, an intense emotion, a compelling enthusiasm, a powerful desire, an unusual excitement, an extravagant fondness, or an enormous affinity, for a person or something. As Denis Diderot put it “penchants, inclinations, desires and aversions carried to a certain degree of intensity, combined with an indistinct sensation of pleasure or pain, occasioned or accompanied by some irregular movement of the blood and animal spirits, are what we call passions. This inclination or so-called disposition of the soul, is born of the opinion we hold that a great good or a great evil is contained in an object which in and of itself arouses passion.” Afterwards, he separates the guiding principles of passion, pleasure and pain, into four major categories:
- Pleasures and pains of the senses
- Pleasures of the mind or of the imagination
- Our perfection or our imperfection of virtues or vices
- Pleasures and pains in the happiness or misfortunes of others
We concluded that because of Passion, the human doubts, questions, contests, disputes, endures, tolerates, pains, suffers, resists, withstands, flirts, falls in love, loves, hopes, expects, desires, feels, trusts, dreams, believes, has faith and…creates Art.
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I would really like to hear your insights on that topic! What is Passion for you?
The Drama Games 
Passion is the suffering and death of Jesus. It is a type of love that unmeasurable and you cannot control.
Lovely post!
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Oh Dara, thank you so much for your good words! I aggree with you and Im looking forward to hearing from you in the future! Happy Ressurection!
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Vaso, your post is very interesting and topical. Excellent job!!!
I believe that because of PASSION people tend to be so suicidal and contradictory. Personally, I try to avoid to be passionate as much as I can because I can’t control this powerful force. For instance, when I am passionate to an assignment, an unexplainable lust overcomes my mind and soul. Αs a result I cannot concentrate on what I have to do and the result of my assignment doesn’t meet my expectations at all.
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Yes you are right; because of passion people sometimes tend to be suicidal and contradictory…As I have stated above, “Passion coexists with Life and Death”. Because of Passion people give their body and soul on something, and that something – “the object of passion” – may destroy them! That’s why, as Leo Belbas says underneath, it’s important to be in a state of “equilibrium”!
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This is indeed an inspiring, stimulating post! As stated above, some, if not all, sorts of passions can have such an impact on a human being that he/she does not have the power to control them anymore. I would say that a passion is capable of driving you high towards your goals, provided that it is not harmful against your inner self and that it does not interfere with other passions. For example, I may have a passion to create a visual masterpiece but, at the same time, my passion for adventure makes me strongly desire to go on a trip to extraordinary destinations. Both passions most probably act as virtues for myself, because the results and consequences of these passions benefit me and, most likely, the others as well. However, in order to find inner tranquility between my passions, I need to fight for a state of “equilibrium”, that is, to find a fine line and balance on which to base my stimuli on the course of life and, most importantly, happiness!
Thank you Vaso for this extraordinary post, since numerous interpretations and concepts surrounding the idea of “passions” can be expressed!!!
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First of all, I am the one who needs to thank you Leo! Didero, as I explained above, was the one who talked about passions; passions are between pleasures and pains, virtues and vices, and so on and so forth…I tottally aggree with you that state of “happiness” equals state of “equilibrium” or “balance”! “All in good measure, all in moderation: moderation is the best thing”. But sometimes I personally believe we need to exceed this state of “moderation”, just to remind ourselves that we are alive with “passions”!
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For me, passion screams that I care. Something important to us. Worthwhile. We’re invested. I’m trying to do all of these things this Easter season. A wonderful post. I liked the idea of tying theater exercises to your remembering the days of Holy Week.
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Good for you Traci and thanks for your comment! Throughout my blog you are going to find a tie of theatre exercises, assignments, performances etc. to existential, philosophical, psychological issues! I believe that any of us should take the seemingly irrelevant bits and parts of his/her daily life and connect them to deeper things! Stay connected! 🙂
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Well done miss Vaso. Your passage proved to be a most exciting philosophical “passion” indeed, if one consider’s Diderot’s second definition of the term. As far as I can understand, through drama games, you achieved into transforming each person’s subjective interpretation of a single sensation associated with the “Holy Days of Easter”, into a manifesto of artistic expression. In my opinion there are several Freudian, (transfiguration of sensory experience into art) and Utilitarian (interplay of pleasure and pain, especially as far as Diderot’s ideas are concerned) connotations in your essay, which makes it even more of a delight to read. Nevertheless, before offering you my insight there are some questions that I’d like to ask in relation to your beautiful passage.
I’d like to begin from your concluding paragraph, according to which a number of human emotions and experiences exist because of passion, (pain and suffering being two of them). That, must be making passion their cause. Yet, according to Diderot’s definition passion is caused by stimulatory arousal such as pleasure and pain which makes the effect of passion also its cause. I admit that I have had some trouble understanding that. Secondly, I’d like to know if you agree with Diderot’s views on passion and which of his definitions (if any) you find more fitting to your fancy.
“But what is passion for me really?” you asked. Well, by all means, a reply you shall receive. A certain Jeremy Bentham once believed that man is in the mercy of two sovereign masters, pleasure and pain, the latter of which he deemed as an evil bound to be avoided. Nevertheless, as you very wisely (and passionately) declared passion (which can be found in both pleasure and pain) can lead to something as bewildering and intoxicating for the senses as…art. Strangely enough, my own experience coincides with that and being partially an empiricist myself, I must say that I find your statement insightful and very true. Art, often related to the profound, the beautiful and even the metaphysical, has often been a product of passion, the most notorious of which being those of Christ, a historical figure who has inspired countless of works of art, some as imposing as the phantasmagorias of the Renaissance masters, as well as others, more obscure yet equally significant, capable of inspiring a vast array of emotions to countless of believers across the centuries. More than a few times, however art has been associated with suffering. The image of Jesus on the cross, of torment and death in medieval and Renaissance iconography, statues and all sorts of artistic expressions celebrating the pains of body and soul alike have been abundant in the history of mankind. Pain and pleasure are to me, a manifestation of the term “opposites attract”, two rival forces caught in an eternal dance, much like Freud’s Id and Superego, only to meet their mediator not in the face of the Ego, but in that of passion and art, which to me might just be one and the same. After all as Goethe wrote in Faust, “God help us — for art is long, and life so short.”
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All things in their perspective…motive-directed passion in the appropriate release can be the difference between a driving force and a complete wreck.
Good post. Thanks for sharing.
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I agree with you ljaylj! Thanks for reading and commenting on it! 🙂
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