How committed are you? To your job? To your personal mission? To the things you must accomplish in this life? How committed are you really?
We’re told we should choose a career that we love so much we’d do it even if we didn’t get paid. That’s a pretty high level of commitment and passion right there. We all want to do something we love, something that has meaning for us. But what if what you loved required you to risk incarceration? Death? That necessitated carrying firearms just to get to the job? That still paid almost nothing, if anything at all? That was so outside the norm that you were the only one in the entire country doing it and you were blazing the trail with almost every action?
That’s pretty rough. Let’s up it a little: would you go into exile for your passion? Would you leave friends, family, and everything you knew behind to go be a second-class citizen in another country just so you could “follow your bliss”?
This weekend I watched the 2007 documentary Heavy Metal in Baghdad about Iraq’s first (only?) metal band Acrassicauda and saw a glimpse into what relentless obsession looks like. The movie is a fascinating look at Baghdad in 2005/06. It’s not about soldiers, politicians, ideologies, right, or wrong. It’s not even really about heavy metal. It’s about the struggle of a group of 20-somethings just trying to have a band and make some music against the backdrop of daily life in Baghdad. What would be a normal – mundane, even – activity for college-aged youth in the US becomes a hero’s quest where hopes and dreams wrestle against the hopelessness of daily violence and chaos.
They suffer more for their dreams than I could ever go through here. I highly recommend the DVD to see the level of commitment they demonstrate.
After watching, I came away wondering how I could up my passion to that level. How can I tap into the human need that’s fueling them to carry on? How can I bring the noise like they do? How can I play that big with the things that are important in my life? How much would I, could I, truly risk?
fool (with a plan) 
Great list of questions at the end to help identify where our true passion lies and when we feel our passion start to fade, to refocus on the reasons we felt that way in the first place. In an earlier blog, you mentioned the danger of routines. Sometimes, those routines turn our passion into the commonplace.
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Glad you enjoyed, Laurie. You’re right – routines can sap passion. And, it’s when our routines get shattered that we discover just how much we’re willing to dig in and fight for those passions.
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Broc,
Awesome post! I just added the DVD to my Netflix queue. By the way, if you have a Netflix subscription, you might want to check out “Anvil! The Story of Anvil.” I really enjoyed it.
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Greg, thanks for the suggestion. The funny thing is that I actually had Anvil! sitting on my counter last night. I’ve been wanting to see it for a while now, but I ended up watching Arsenic & Old Lace instead (I’m a big fan of Cary Grant). I’ll rent Anvil! again soon (and watch it this time).
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Broc,
I just watched Heavy Metal in Baghdad tonight. I thought it was really interesting. Thanks so much for recommended it.
I did a Google search and their Wikipedia page says they are in the U.S. now:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrassicauda
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Greg, glad you were able to track it down and enjoyed it. Sure makes my tough days on the job look easy.
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