Unfettered Blather

Kathy Sierra posted a great piece on the differences in people’s passions. She takes a good hard look at why passion isn’t bad, but to get others involved we need to understand there passions and be able to explain why ours are so important to us.

I just want to take it one step further.

Passion is good, within reason. As I commented over in Ms. Sierra’s blog, so long as your passions don’t prevent you from putting food on the table or making your mortgage payment, it’s all good. I don’t care if you just went out and spent $3,000 on video equipment, it’s your money. What gets irritating is when people go from being passionate about something to becoming downright elitist about it.

For example, people who are passionate about anime (Japanese animation) are generally eager to share and love to talk about it, like any hobbyist. People who have become elitist about anime consider it some sort of snobbery to have seen some obscure work, in a field where most anime is obscure to Americans anyway, and consider people who listen to English dubs instead of reading subtitles are somehow beneath them.

I know a lot of Java programmers who get like this as well. If it’s not written in Java, it should be. They consider using Microsoft programming tools to be an anathema. C++ programmers are some kind of inferior breed. I’m not sure where this elitism comes from. I’ve been programming in Java and various Java-related technologies for the past 7 years and I wouldn’t pass up a chance to do some .NET if it came my way. I like Java, I’m even passionate about Java, but I refuse to make it the core of my world.

Elitism does not win people over to your cause, nor does it make you a better person. It is implied superiority, and just another insubstantial way that people use to make themselves feel above others. I’d much rather deal with someone who is passionate about their hobby, work, interests, job, etc. share their experiences with me than someone who is elitist. Someone who is truly passionate will want to spread the joy, not judge those who have not pursued it to the same extent.

Also, as Kathy Sierra notes, your passion may not be my passion. There is little point trumpeting your $500 MP3 player to me when I don’t care much about audio equipment. You see, I have sensory deafness, so I am NEVER going to be passionate about audio since I do not have the means to enjoy it. It’s like bragging about your $200 running shoes and looking down on the guy in the wheelchair. Even then, I can walk and run just fine and you’re still not going to find me dropping two Ben Franklins on a pair of exercise shoes. You see, footwear is not my passion, it holds no interest for me.

That’s ok, enjoy your passion anyway. Don’t be an elitist prick about it, but go ahead and share with those that are interested. And don’t pester me because I’d rather spend my money on fixing up my house than buying a large screen HDTV. We’ve all got our priorities.

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