Giving It the College Try

Somehow I find myself drawn to reading Creating Passionate Users blog, despite disagreeing with the tone it's written in. The latest article is moderately brilliant, at least, in the way modern journalism works.

Have you watched the news lately? Once upon a time, the news would report the ongoings of events in the US. News might even cover events internationally. Then, news had to fend for itself. It had to make profit. This was especially true of local news.

Television news organizations discovered Americans simply don't care. They stopped giving much international coverage, except when it involves a celebrity like Lady Di's untimely death. They focused on US news, and more than that, they focused on more personal stories, and especially in local news, news you can use, or at least "fear" news (do you know your fireplace can kill you?), all in the name of drawing an audience who simply turns blinders to what happens in Iraq. Even the recent events in London are, I'd suspect, seen as some distant event that happens overseas, and not worth worrying about.

When news wants to make a point, it finds someone to be the face of that point. If there's problems with unemployment, they find Ms. Jane Doe, who works at a megalomart department store, which used to sell American products, but now sells cheap imports. Workers are told to work more hours, with less pay. You see crying kids at home, as she laments about how she can't pay to feed her children.

You want to make a point? You tell the story of one person, and people will believe the story is typical, and true of many people. As news-telling goes, it's a sloppy inference, but it says as much of the lack of news savvy that the audience falls for this rather than use their noggin. This is what news organizations are reduced to when they want to get your attention.

Recently, in the article I linked to above, Kathy writes about whether college is all that important. Her big kick is passion. As she points out, she's an evangelist for passion. She's read about studies that show college isn't what it used to be, and I'm thinking, what is this woman smoking, but I'm intrigued.

Finally, she gets to the crux of her story. It's her daughter. She doesn't want to go to college. She wants to go to cooking school. She wants to cook. That's her passion. That's what she believes in. And she figures, it's not so different from her mom (Kathy) who got a degree in exercise physiology, or as the daughter describes it, a glorified aerobics instructor.

In the end, Kathy makes her point brilliantly because it's her daughter who convinces her that what she's doing is right, and she appears like the caveman in the story, clinging to old ideas, even though the daughter epitomizes Kathy's sense of passion.
This is great.

Except it's not. I mean, I feel happy for her daughter, and I'm sure she's doing what she wants, and that's fine. I don't begrudge that. However, just because her daughter isn't passionate about college doesn't mean college isn't necessarily right for many students who are able to go to college, and I'm even talking about those who are passionate for it.

To give you an example, how many people want to write books, or act, or announce for sports games. I have a housemate who is good enough to do sports announcing (I believe). He's insightful. He's personable. I also believe thousands of people are similarly passionate and skilled, but due to the few numbers of people who are allowed to make a living doing this, it makes no sense for my housemate to pursue this passion. It just doesn't. He's skilled enough to do a job he may not love, but will pay him plenty well, and give him time to do things he does love.

What if the thing you're most passionate about is something you can't make a living at. I know people who play poker for hours or video games for hours. Sorry, they can't make a living doing that, and it may not even make sense for them to do so. We'd all love to be passionate about something, but sometimes, people lose that.

And what happens to people who simply want to sit on a beach sipping drinks with little umbrellas ordering around poolboys (or girls) to attend to their every need. The thought of passion is the furthest thing from their mind. Are they out of luck? Are they the losers in our society?

Look, I want to believe in this passionate society that Kathy espouses. Clearly, it works for her (especially if she were into aerobics). But passion is a tricky thing, and is the equivalent, in my mind, of wanting a highly romantic marriage. It can be highly idealized, and therefore, extremely disappointing to those who can't achieve the fairy tale success.

Now just because I'm down on this idea of passion doesn't mean I believe people shouldn't try or shouldn't care. Just do it with your eyes open, and your brain still a thinkin.