Also, why should you want one?
I felt like I had leveled up. Suddenly I was more competent, more confident, and ready for the next step.
Several times I had disassembled the axle of the pedals of my bike—called the bottom bracket—and then cleaned, re-greased, and readjusted it. As I went through this and other repeat maintenance tasks, I kept asking friends and people in bike shops for advice, and reading books, trying to understand better the delicate adjustments, and I kept getting better at it. Finally, I reached a point where I could really maintain my own bike. I felt a strong sense of ownership and expertise. I had this!
Next steps: I bought the components I wanted and built my own bike from the frame up, and then went on to ride it thousands of miles, repairing and maintaining as it needed. There I am in the photo, age 17, on a 1,000-mile bike trip. Too bad my gorgeous bike is not in the photo!
Becoming a better and better rider, and better and better mechanic, with the goal of doing a long bicycle camping trip, was my passion project in that part of my life. That sense of having a purpose and a project, a topic I really loved and wanted to learn more about, was absolutely intoxicating. It’s that passion for discovery that we each have within us.
I wish a passion project for everyone; they are life-changing.
This is a big part of the purpose of Beagle Learning. We give a structure for people to start with some ideas of things they are interested in, and then learn and begin a passion project. Powerful in the classroom, powerful in the community, and transformative for individuals.
I’ve already had many passion projects in my life: The bicycle project, paper-making and book-binding, organic gardening, learning to identify mosses and lichens, creating hand-carved boxes from natural branches of a fallen birch tree, writing books of several varieties, and the science that I conduct as part of my job.
Some people wouldn’t count the science, since it’s a vocation, not an avocation, and usually a passion project is defined as something that you do voluntarily. But I don’t think the passion is affected by the pay—if you get paid to do something you care about passionately, good for you!
The real definition of a passion project is that it’s your own pure choice and you feel a little obsessed with it. I would borrow a phrase from Gary Shteyngart: When I am engaging in my passion projects, I am “being alive in the presence of the universe.”
When I work on a scientific question about the formation of planets, I often feel all the colors around me get more intense. I feel more alive and more present, more joyful. I once described it as feeling like my soul had rushed to the front of my body. It creates for me what some people call a peak experience.
That is a passion project.
Abraham Maslow, the same American psychologist who created Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, interviewed hundreds of people and described 25 features of peak experiences, including disorientation in space and time, self-forgetfulness (which is ego transcendence, the moving beyond the self of oneself as the most important center), the feeling that the world if good and beautiful, feeling humble, believing that polarities and disputes have been resolved, and feeling fortunate or graced.
This is what we wish for everyone. Experience that kind of positive growth state of learning and doing, of caring.
What’s your passion project? Here are some we’ve seen:
- Learning a new language
- Making their school a kinder place
- Taking care of unhoused people in their community
- Rebuilding a car
- Achieving deeper meditation
- Building an intentional cooperative living community
- Getting licensed in ham radio
- Training for a doing a long-distance hike
Find a thing you love, and pursue it. Do it alone or do it with others. Do it forever or just for a few days. But do it. It’ll make you happier and more complete, it’ll give you purpose, and it may even make you a better person, more purposeful, joyful, humble, wise, and capable.
