PASSION and COMPASSION

The dictionary links “passion” with “suffering, emotion, love, devotion”

The word is used to indicate enthusiastic interest or admiration for an idea, activity, or purpose, to enthusiastically enjoy an interest or activity, or to express a strong attraction, excitement, stubborn feeling, or disposition towards something or somebody.

Passion can last for a short instant or for a very long time; it connects to life while chasing it, and it can transform itself into dedication and loyalty to the point of obsession. The double-edged nature of passion is here quite evident: passion can be good or it can be bad: it depends.

St. Thomas Aquinas argues that all of the passions, including hatred, anger, sorrow, and despair, are morally neutral. That is, Thomas Aquinas sustains that how a person responds to a particular passion determines the morality of the passion, and not the passion itself.

In brief, passion is not a virtue, it is a human force that can be used in positive or negative terms.

Philosophy considers passion as a strong emotion that governs human behaviour, aimed primarily at the purpose/object/person toward which is directed, capable to generate confusion and blindness over time.

The meaning of “passion” deepens when we start looking at it from the perspective of motorcycling. For example, passion for motorcycles as vehicles could be one of the faces of material greed, while passion for competent motorcycling could be part of the search for perfection or excellence.

Here the two faces of Passion come to full contrast: on one side the greedy POSSESSION that passion implies, a violent temptation to slave the subject of passion. On the other side, passion could be the gate to embracing, building, and renewing the rider.

While the ambitious possessive and violent person sees the road as a ‘process’ that violence must consume, leave behind, and finish, a sign of power and possession, the com-passionate person accepts the road and the ride as a companion that never ends, always new, educating, surprising and satisfying.

While riding, passion motivates the dedicated pursuit of perfect performance: material rewards such as speed or approval and admiration lose importance.

But the double-edged nature of passion is capable to generate confusion and blindness over time, two states of mind that do not go well with road users.

It is like a badly directed passion can become a real enemy of safe riding, creating red herrings, tunnel vision, and loss of situational awareness.

Passion for the self on a new bike can lead to observing the mirror image on a shop window missing the traffic ahead… passion for staying ahead in a group can lead to risky actions and serious mistakes… passion for being the best can alter the evaluation of skills available… and so on.

• Without passion and the motivation that comes from it, it is difficult to live or enjoy any activity: at the origin of a positive passion, there is always the primary search of humans, the search for happiness. Passion is the force that moves us toward happiness and passion must be directed toward making life meaningful.

Identified by Victor Frankl as the main motivational drive for people, “the effort to make life meaningful” may be the only goal for passion well-directed.

Once we have freely identified what, for each of us, makes life meaningful, and worth living, passion surges as a powerful engine toward this objective.

All activities are roads that lead to happiness, and to living with meaning: including riding a motorcycle.

The passionate pilot, who is aware of the need to apply a “riding system”, should have the ability to continuously learn, to constantly review acquired knowledge and skills, and to grow in excellence and happiness.

A passion for meaning and excellence, in all we do, builds respect for the community, for the environment, and for the person.

This is an extended concept of passion: shared passion, a passion we have in common with humans, the cum-passion.

COMPASSION

To suffer with, to have feelings and passion in common: the etymology of compassion combines “cum” (Latin for “with, together”) with “passion” identifying and defining one of the most powerful virtues: “It is better to be compassionate than perfect” and therefore it is the virtue that a good motorcycle rider should have.

According to the German thinker A. Schopenhauer, compassion is the only virtue that can remove the egoism, selfishness and evil of the will.

Compassion is not pitying the ones who are not me, but replacing the “me” for the “not-me”, leading to true justice and human love.

Compassion”, one of the basic values of being human, develops and matures people and gives them broader perspectives. It destroys selfishness, removes violence and rudeness, and transforms a pure act of judgement into an understanding surging from the heart. It links conscience with affection.

One of the most important virtues that will make us mature on the way to being a good person is compassion: the attitude to feel, suffer and rejoice in union with others. A conscious motorcyclist must be compassionate, in his private and social life with all beings with whom he shares his life.

Compassion brings tolerance, love, and calmness.

Motorcycle riders who try to develop this virtue can improve their capacity to better analyse mistakes that the other parties make. A compassionate analysis of the traffic elements and their behaviour develops empathy skills and sets an example for other road users.

Finally, passion and compassion inspire our desire for knowledge, new things and new values to be discovered by taking a curious and open-minded approach to self and all.