Passion

The Marketing Mama has sort of started something, and I thought I would join her.  She wants us to blog about passion or What are we passionate about? 

First it's important to identify what constitutes a passion.  The dictionary definition is "strong feeling or emotion".  This is more or less the reason I hesitated about this, and am still finding it difficult to participate.  Strong feeling or emotions tend to lead to strong controversies.  There is a 99% chance that everyone who reads this blog will not appreciate all the passions I have.  There is a 99% chance that someone might disagree with my passions, or like the passion, but disagree with how I carry it out.  Also - I'll add here that I generally a proud moderate, not really a true activist of any kind.  I like that even in my areas of "strong opinion" I can see the other side.  So while I am passionate about things there is always a "but", because I can see the other side or at least understand that there is a cultural difference and not a personal one.

Additionally - I will add here that I view passions and interests as different.  I am interested in many things - it would be impossible to mention them all.  
 
Each of my passions, comes with many questions - How do we educate? How do we motivate?  How do we change?  I hope that these things may happen, but am keenly aware of how difficult they are and I don't claim to have all the answers.

Animal Welfare - Primarily most of my animal love energy is extended towards cats right now, but I am working on how that could be changed/expanded and certainly I do feel this is good thing to support - if not only in spirit.  But back to the kittehs!  I volunteer regularly at a cat shelter and truly enjoy the work.  Even though it's pretty much just scooping poop and so on (and lubbing da kittehs).  We are a no-kill organization, which means we won't euthanize unless it is matter of health (the animal is in so much pain in no longer makes sense to continue) - not money.  As I have learned this is not the standard "71 percent of cats that enter animal shelters are euthanized. More cats are euthanized than dogs because they are more likely to enter a shelter without any owner identification."(American Humane).  That sobering statistic can be backed up more than one horror story I know of.  If you would like to learn more about my organization, or "kittehs" that are available for adoption - you can follow this blog.    
 


Education - I feel that many of the issues pressing on us in our world today - childhood obesity, poverty, hate... could be at least helped by some form of education.  As a teacher, I realize that it is no surprise that I would say this, but I would like to add that I don't just put this out there to push the traditional school model (nor to condemn it).  The point is I think learning can occur in many arenas, and it is essential to making many life changes, whether it be a career move, adopting a healthy lifestyle, or understanding another culture.  In my life, the more educated I become on a topic the greater I can understand it and help others understand too.  In this way educational growth can be exponential.  My passion for education fuels my side-passions for people (to see them learning, to understand how others process), and critical thinking (to not just gain knowledge, but to use it and ask questions).

Food - Eating it, Making it, Growing it, Photographing it! Hopefully it's somewhat obvious that I do enjoy food.  I also think food is "powerful".  It's a reason to get together with friends, we can't live without it, but it also can destroy us.  There is "good" food, and "bad" food....  and "good" food that tastes "bad", and "bad" food that tastes "good".  At times it's delightfully simple, at time's it is horrifically complicated.  It interests me - to say the least.  
          
Of course, I am passionate about other things too - My Huzbun, my Family, life, finding joy in small things, and humor - just to mention a few!