Passion snobs (eg Roy Keane)

I don't have much Keane in me (surprise!) - I think my suspicion of passionate people isn't that they're passionate, that's great, it's that they judge passion so outwardly. The problem with Keane isn't his hating on slackers (particularly in his very high-paid profession it's inexusable) (OK, spot the hypocrite but Interweb analysis isn't the richest game in town) it's the way he seems to assume that anyone without his eye-popping level of commitment can't have any: there's surely a place for people who are quietly passionate, but the concept never seems to make any sense to the noisy ones.

I think it would have been good to read Keane talking about this himself, rather than acting it out.

It's interesting, passion rockism, I only understand the quietly passionate thing as a difference, ie I know sometimes being passionate is embarassing and so there must be another way.

Actually the issue is competitiveness not passion, perhaps?

(That said people who are passionate about their office work piss me off too, maybe because they're often competing against ME!)

There is a way to channel that passion to other ppl so that it won't be a turn off to ppl who might not share it or are yet to be convinced that its something worth being passionate abt.

and vice-versa.

Actually, I'm really not sure that is the case across the board, but it kind of applies. It's also interesting because it's diametrically opposite to football but it equally a very difficult thing to do and succeed at.

I suspect whether or not this is admirable is partly to do with teamwork and partly to do with the cost of error... which in football and classical music is pretty high. If one person drops a clanger they can drag everyone else down with them. This is as true in everyday working life as well, I suppose, but you just expect people to CARE more about genuine vocations than 9-5 pay-the-rent work.

Roy Keane does take this philosophy to total mentalist levels, though.

Um, that's practically my entire personality. maybe I need to re-think this.

I saw Norris McWhirter yesterday.

Oh, he's such a doddery, sad old man (squinting through his specs at the Metro on the Circle Line between Gt Portland St and Edgware Rd), I didn't have the heart to verbally abuse him.

I did get back to the office and run "McWhirter racist" through Google though, just for laffs.

http://www.everything60s.com/INTROPIC.gif

I think about ppl who are able to wind themselves up into a competitive state of mind, partisanship, whatever you'd call it, as a tactic for success. That siege mentality as a tool. I can never tell, say at work for instance, whether these blinkers are actually there subconsciously or whether they're donned as a professional convenience.

I can't begin to understand it in either instance, but I think in the latter eventuality I could at least try to learn it.

" I think it might be a common enough human mechanism to constantly tell oneself you care more about what you're doing than any of your competitors and are more passionate and have invested more therein."

good post there from ronan and probably true about most workers, artists, thieves, murderers, bullshitters and Roy Keane etc