What is your passion? And why?

First, what is yours @kaffo?

Being in water.

Preferably lakes, the sea is ok and pools are a last resort.

While there are lots of ways to be in the water and things you can do, what I love with it, is that I can feel my whole skin at once.

It allows me to get a sense of my physical boundaries like nothing else. It does seem to help with my emotional boundaries as well, as when I get to spend time in water I also seem to manage to take care of myself better.

This year I've taken lessons to learn to swim better and also to freedive. In time I hope to take after Johanna Nordblad as the cold helps tremendously in defining the borders between me and the rest of the world.

Parenting

I do love young people (also known as children), but even more I love their caretakers.

Everyone trying their best to provide for a young person is a hero in my book.

It is not always easy, and often quite hard to parent a child. Thank you.

I have quite a few, but to share a different one than space or video games this time:

Martial arts, especially traditional martial arts. This isn't to say that there aren't some effective techniques utilized in MMA gyms but the culture and lack of patience of those places tend to make me roll my eyes. I generally believe almost any traditional martial art that has lasted decades or even centuries have some really interesting techniques and applications within them. You just need to have the patience and curiosity to learn about them.

Reading Literature.

I have a ~3500 library in my house which is my pride and joy, I've collected them over many years of hunting thrift stores and used book stores/book sales. I try and spend at least an hour 5-6 days a week reading quietly by myself in my library. I also spend ~30-40 minutes/weekday listening to less serious Audiobooks on my morning commute. This allows me to consume somewhere around 50-60 books/year, terribly low but what can you do when a 40 hour/week job steals almost all of ones free time.

How did this start? I had a great uncle that I really looked up to, really smart guy and very well read. He had a personal library, much smaller than what mine is now but it was the first time I really saw a serious collection of books in someone's house and thought 'I want this in my life'. When he died I took almost his entire library and that was the beginning of mine, which I've now increased in size many times over.

I've been collecting and reading like this for ~15 years now. My total count of finished books from my library is around 650. So unless I can retire early (working on it) I will likely die before I can even finish what's in my library and until very recently the books have been coming in faster than I can read them. So many great books, so short is the human lifespan.

Why Literature? I seek a deeper understanding of the human condition. I haven't found anything that delivers that like serious literature. Each book is another piece of the puzzle, another insight, another type of personality, another way of life. Literature focuses on the human, the plot is very much secondary and sometimes non-existent. No matter the age or location humans are humans and we can find things in even the oldest books that speak directly to us today. The use of language becomes a high art, these genius writers crafting pages like they are a fine Italian renaissance painting, I revel in the how the greats use language as a tool of communication and in how deeply they can make us feel. That feeling is what is most important to me, to really FEEL a character, to understand their interior life, their motives, troubles, and passions is to understand oneself. To take what these great books have to offer and apply them to ones own thinking, understanding, and empathy towards our fellow man has enriched my life beyond what I ever thought was possible.

There is a great quote about reading from Ralph Waldo Emerson: "I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me."

My passion is new experiences.

Rarely do I remain passionate about the same thing for long.

Usually after three years I end up less... passionate. And then I look for something new.

I did have a couple of catastrophic injuries. I used to think those injuries blocked my true passions.

I think it's OK not to have a single passion. Just as long as you live for something more than eat, work, sleep.

I love lizards

They’re goofy and fragile and have big personalities and little cute habits. They know who you are and they like their routine. Honestly the only thing that separates them from a mammal is most of them wont vocalize at you.

I think most people think of them as boring aquarium creatures cause thats how they’re treated. I hate walking into a pet shop and seeing some poor lizard in a too small cage on the wrong substrate without enough heat. You’d be boring too if that was your life. You peer in and they look up at you like they’ve already given up and they’re so young. Most of them die within the first year.

I just love them though. Most days the only good thing that happened to me all day is I got to meet a lizard on the side walk.