(2006-07-22) Downes Passion

Stephen Downes on Passion. I think that it's true that you cannot excel at something without passion (though I wonder sometimes about effortless Genius), so if you do see excellence you probably see passion. But the converse is not true; if you see passion, you may or may not see excellence. Still. The important thing is the passion. And, interestingly, when people have passion for something, and are always trying to be better (Self Improvement), it does not matter whether the outcome is some arbitrary definition of excellent, or simply the person's best.