What Passion Actually Feels Like

We all want more passion. Passion makes us come alive. How often have we had an experience that gives us a tingling sensation when we remember it? Try to recall all the positive and passionate feelings you have had and see how you feel.

If you connect with something that is authentic for you, you will feel it. You will feel it in the chakras, the energy sites in your body. No matter how long ago it happened, you will still feel it.

Every day we try to recreate sensations that gave us special feelings. Recreating in a positive way is constructive. Recreating by sublimating through artificial stimulants can create pleasurable sensations, but they have negative consequences.

This distinction has never been more important than it is right now, because we are living in an era of manufactured passion. The dopamine economy — the system of apps, platforms, and devices engineered to trigger short bursts of neurochemical reward — has created a civilization of people who are constantly stimulated but rarely moved. A notification gives you a hit. A like gives you a hit. A new episode, a new scroll, a new outrage, a new purchase — all hits. But a hit is not passion. A hit is a transaction. Passion is a state of being.