Fear

I am afraid of losing passion.  For as long as I can remember, I had drive and determination.  I've known what I wanted to do with my life since I was eleven.  There was always something pushing me forward, some motivation toward greatness.  It was usually intangible, but there were constantly moments when I would find myself in an adverse situation (no matter how minor) and the passion would be there, raw, angry, proud.

I'm shy on the surface.  Shy, quiet, complacent.  That's how I come off to most people when I first meet them.  I know how to be calm, respectful, dignified.  I feel that I carry myself well in situations where those attributes are appreciated.  Someone once told me that I was like a baby chick in an egg of diamond.  The exterior is nearly impenetrable, but if you got past it, the inside is the easiest thing in the world to crush.  True.  Although I didn't admit it to him.  It would've been letting down my guard...I understand now that he probably already knew.

It's not something I'm particularly ashamed of, though.  I put my effort into a calm and calculating exterior because it works for me.  It gets me where I want to go.  I leave the core unpolished and underdeveloped.  If you get through the diamond, you find a battlefield of unchecked emotions, unhinged passions, unbelievable stubbornness and pride.  Each of the seven deadly sins probably lurks there, and I make no attempt to stop them.  It's the force of the feeling there that's gotten me where I am.  It's the driving factor behind the rational and calculated ascent that I make.

And some days like today, I look back on the way I was.  The proud, arrogant, even childish stubbornness that won me so many of the fights I went through--mostly against myself--to get here.  In a number of ways, I'm not like that anymore.  I'm calmer, more collected.  Even if you gaze upon the whirlwind of feelings, it's held more rigidly in check.  It has become less fiery and more tempered.  When it flares up, it does so dangerously, but it only ever stirs so rarely...

It makes life easier a lot of the time, being able to take things in stride.  It also makes me miss the excitement of being on an edge.  In the past year especially, I've calmed down significantly.  I've become less easily shaken, but also less easily stirred.  I don't so much fear losing my passion, perhaps, as I fear it being placated, soothed, calmed.  Passion isn't something to be calmed.  It's one of those aspects that's supposed to remain forceful and unpredictable.  I'm afraid that if I lose that, I lose part of who I am.