You know when it’s good.

You feel everything with increased intensity—you feel alive.

Electric.

You don’t want it to end.

The intensity washes over you—leaving you exhilarated and savoring the moment.

You found it, that sweet spot. Everything just flows. It’s effortless. It’s just…right.

These are the moments a writer lives for. The moments when passion and feeling take over. You’re not writing with your mind anymore. Your soul has opened up and laid itself bare—sacrificial bits scattered on the floor. There’s a piece of you pulsing in each of the words that are strewn across the page.

Today you made something.

Great writing, mind-blowing sex, amazing art and soul shaking music are all generated by the same thing—passion. Unhinged, fire-breathing, life-affirming passion.

These are the things we live for—things that only see the light of day when we let our guard down. They are the things that we replay in our mind, that we relish and savor and hold close. The moments and feelings that we crave. We need passion, in all of it’s glorious forms.

Our souls cannot live on a diet of work, eat, sleep, repeat. We need more than just a life of obligation and routine.

We need to feel something.

We need our senses awakened—it’s what drives us to do the amazing, the impossible.

But sometimes…sometimes we gets stifled. Sometimes we worry about the outcome, and we get mired down in the what ifs and the what-will-they-thinks. We try to fit into a formula or something akin to “acceptable.” That’s where we lose it. That’s where we fold submissively and passively into the faceless crowd. Another voice muffled in the din…

F*ck that noise.

If you’re looking to fit in or repeat something that’s been done time and time again, don’t even bother. There are plenty of rebels and misfits—avant garde and anarchy. They are the planters of the seeds of change and progress. Acquiescing is better left to the followers.

You’re not doing anyone any favors if you offer up the tried and true—the flavorless and mundane. It will just leave you wanting more, never fulfilled.

We’ve all been there. Who hasn’t been left wanting at some point?

A disengaged lover—a book or essay that is bland and unoriginal—music that seems to be the same formula, recycled over and over…

We’ve all felt the frustration of knowing something that should have been amazing was instead tedious or boring—something we eagerly anticipated left us wanting.

Is there anything worse?

The tolerating of the banal? The anticlimax? You find yourself staring at the ceiling, waiting for it to be over—you check your watch or skim a page without even reading. The let-down drops you hard and fast, startling you into frustration and agitation.

The lack of stimulation singes your senses, and maybe you sink into apathy…

Don’t let yourself settle.

Seek the passion in life—live it, make it, find it.

Sex, writing, art, music—when driven by passion, they reach down into the deepest parts of us and awaken feelings we forgot we had. They make us feel blissfully alive. They leave our mouth open in slack-jawed wonder. It’s glorious and beautiful—otherwise, why do it?

Why do something if we’re not aiming above predictable or boring. Who has time for that? I’ve no time for flat sex, boring art or tired music. I want to scream out—to be challenged—to feel music and words and touch coursing through me and firing up the parts of me that hunger for something real.

I want to be challenged! I don’t want to be humored or placated—don’t tell me what I already know.

And I want to see other people alive—diving head first into the unknown, exploring new waters, fearless and free.

So don’t hold back—find your passion.

Dig for it, search for it, and let it loose. Unleash it, and throw away all doubts of failure or condemnation.

Write with freedom.

Make art that no one has ever made before.

Compose a song that will save the souls of the hurting.

Whatever it is that you do, do it fully and wholeheartedly.

Speak your truth—say the words that others don’t dare say—let go of inhibition and fear.

Allow yourself to be and do what it is you were put here to do. Wreck yourself with abandon—let your skin ripple into a million bumps of pleasure. Whip your hair around and let them all think you’re crazy.

Yes, let them think it—who cares? You are alive right now.

Whether you are making art, making music or making love—do it so that you feel alive. Skeptics, critics and naysayers be damned.

Don’t water it down. Don’t temper it. Don’t dump ashes on your fire.

Some may balk—they may judge or scorn. Who cares? They’re just scared of the heat—not everyone can handle the real and the unrestrained.

You’re not doing this for them. You’re doing it because you need it, and it satisfies your need for something more than just a stale and predictable life.

Let them have their simple and safe—you weren’t built for that.

You were built for passion.

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Relephant:

8 Songs about Rebellion to Fuel our Inner Fire.

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Author: Gretchen Kelly

Apprentice Editor: Jami C. Wallace/Editor: Yoli Ramazzina

Photo: Unsplash/Roksolana Zasiadko