Wednesday Wanderings

For me, finding your passion is not about the destination or the answer, but about the journey.  There is always something new to find joy in - if there isn't, broaden your horizon.  There was a point in time when I worried about this tendency of mine; I thought maybe it meant I was wifty or too easily entertained.  I've come to accept that having a single focus is simply outside of my nature:  I find too many things fascinating.

And I have gone through what amounted to passing phases.  There were a few months as a teenager when my life plan was to become a historical interpreter - for instance, the townsfolk you see at living history sites like Conner Prairie or Williamsburg.  My experiences at our area Renaissance Festival make me feel I would have been pretty good at this:  I can be quite outgoing when I'm not myself.  There was also a briefer period where I toyed with becoming a lawyer - yes, really.  Already grumbling about the loans from a year and a half of culinary school, I'm very glad I didn't go that route ...

I will admit that when I first entered culinary school, I was self-conscious.  I was more or less alone in my age range:  my peers were either right out of high school or much older, people who had been in the same career for decades and were now changing careers.  It's a narrative that the general public identifies with:  you pay your dues until the grind finally breaks you down.  That wasn't me.

But I've always done things in my own time - and being smack dab in the middle when the usual age was much younger or much older was not a new phenomenon.  When I started harp, I was sixteen ... a bit of an oddity when it was often the choice of empty nesters or retirees, or - conversely - something started as a child.

If there is a common thread between my passions, they're about creating something.  Admittedly, the fact that it is for someone else's consumption is somewhat incidental for me:  obviously, pleasing the consumer is where the money is, but the art is ultimately internal.  The rest puts a roof over my head.  Roofs are nice.  So is wireless internet.

I've learned to let go of stresses about timing, about being too young, too old, not on pace with the rest world:  I never have been.  In any case, to quote Douglas Adams, time is an illusion; lunchtime doubly so.