Passion as Vitrol

"Take LeSage, for instance--my friend, my employer, my Rose of Madison Avenue. You think it was his ego that got him in television? Like hell it was! He has no ego any more--if ever he had one. He's split it up into hobbies. He has at least three hobbies that I know of--and they all have to do with a big, ten-thousand-dollar workroom in his basement, full of power tools and vises and God knows what else. Nobody who's really using his ego, his real ego, has any time for any goddam hobbies." Zooey Glass, Franny and Zooey.

I quote Salinger here not to bump my literary cred but to make a point about passions and the idea of following one's bliss. Most people here the phrase "follow your bliss" and think of some neo-mystic and all too fake guru promising enlightenment and happiness if you would just buy this book and associated dvds. Of course I take a different view. I wouldn't have said anything if I didn't think following my bliss was important. But the phrase is misunderstood. Salinger, through the voice of Zooey Glass, gets it though. Hobbies are excuses to avoid ever having to pursue your passions. As Joseph Campbell said (the originator of the phrase "follow your bliss") to pursue your passions is like walking on the edge of a sword. Yes, you may fail, you may fail horribly. But what else are you going to do? You can live like LeSage, filling your time with hobbies whenever you are off work. You can watch your television, play games, drink, practice yoga, meditation and martial arts. There are thousands of ways you can spend your time to keep the boredom at bay. But none of that, not a single one, matters if it doesn't push you along your chosen path.
Sometimes you need the trivial and banal. There's a sense of catharsis, of cleansing when you engage in activities that ultimately don't matter. Every action you take does not have to hold a purpose. Yet hobbies are an illusion of purposeful action. That's the trick of hobbies. The real ego can't allow for hobbies to distract. If what you purposefully do in your spare time does not build toward the realization of your bliss then you are simply masturbating. And as masturbation is compared to sex, hobbies grant only a brief reprieve from the emotional need to purse something, anything.
I don't believe that we are born with a purpose, at least not all of us. Existence itself is not a purpose. And I also believe that we get the life we have right now only once. Whatever happens after we die we get this life just once. So if we are not intrinsically imbued with a purpose and we only get this existence once then why not do something with it? We get to choose our own purpose and we damn well better choose a purpose that makes us happy. Yes, not all of us get to fulfill our chosen purpose, not all of us get to be happy. That's life, so be it. But to surrender yourself to the soul-sucking experience of hobbies, never making the attempt to follow your bliss at all? I can't handle that.
Don't aspire for anything and don't aspire to be anything. You are either doing it or you are not. If the entirety of your existence is based around the jobs you have and your life is based around the time that you are not at your job and not sleeping then what the hell are you doing? As I said, hobbies are an excuse. They are a blatant attempt to run as fast as you can from acknowledging that you are wasting your fucking time.