As we discussed last time, passionate living is finding the playful eagerness within ourselves to live and create the life we value.  How are we supposed to do that?  The key to unlock our inner doors of passion is exploration.

The word explore is from the mid 16th century Latin ex- (out) and plorare (utter a cry) which when combined became explorer meaning to search out.  The French used this and the word  became associated with investigation, to search out and asking the question “why?” When we explore a topic, a feeling or an experience we learn, discover and become aware of the different levels of it.  Turning it over and looking at things from different perspectives allows us to see nuances and intricacies we missed before.  Layers of meaning, perspective and awareness emerge when we explore our inner realms and their connections to the outside world.  Finding this playful eagerness to experience more of what we explore, we may even cry out in exuberance.  Perhaps this is one meaning of Walt Whitman’s sounding of a “barbaric yawp.”

Applying this to the business of you and using our passion to create the life we truly want, exploration is the act of inquiring of ourselves why we do the things we do.  We can understand our motivations and deepest desires if we take some time to isolate the things having the greatest influence over our lives.  Our motivations have inspiration buried within them if we can slow down, reflect and explore our inner yearnings to create.  Once we connect with our inspirations we can use them to drive us to do the things necessary to create what we truly want.  We can guide our interests in a manner that helps our personal business prosper.

Sexuality is perhaps one of the easiest passions to connect with provided we don’t have any significant inhibitions, repressions or other locks on our inner doors as it relates to our intrinsic genetic drives. Our sexuality relates to our will to pleasure as postulated by Sigmund Freud.  As it is one of our primary biological motivations, we find a lot of sexual undertones in the advertising and marketing within our societies.  As Mihaly Csiksgentmihalyi writes, “Pleasure is profitable.” There is the will to meaning where we create through our work, experiencing something or someone, and our attitude towards suffering.  There is the will to power of Friedrich Nietzsche which drives our achievement, ambition and striving for the highest potential.  There’s the will to live and Arthur Schopenhauer’s continually dissatisfied will.  And, there’s the will to individuate put forward by Carl Jung  developing our personality through self-awareness, transformation and self-actualization.  Whatever will we connect to, the key is to explore it and grow our awareness of it. We do this through our attention and having an open attitude to learn and explore.

Directing our attention towards what we want to create in life, the desires and motivations coupled with it allows our playful eagerness to emerge.  This is true of kids, adults or those with only a few years left in life.  When a person wants to do something for themselves they will find a way to get it done no matter what.  Whereas, when a person is told to do something they will find excuses why it can’t be done or they will allow the smallest obstruction to prevent progress.  They won’t have time or are too busy with other things.  When we adjust our attention to what motivates us, things fall into place, joy and satisfaction emerge.  Life works out in our favor and people say we make it look easy.  There are a myriad examples of this from Michael Jordan to Albert Einstein.  People who create have an inherent drive to succeed and often don’t even know where it comes from.  They don’t need to.  They simply focus their attention on what they truly want.  We become exuberant and eager to learn, grow and take the next action when we experience the creation of our lives through our attention, decisions and actions.