I
t was May 2003. I was 21. Twenty-one was too
young to be lying down in my bed every night
wondering if I was going to wake up the next
day. Anorexia had taken hostage over my health
during my junior year of college. By the end of
the academic year, I decided to take a medical
leave of absence from college to focus on recovery. My body and mind were frail and compromised, but I still thought it would be therapeutic
to bring my Yamaha 88-key Motif Synthesizer
and my Nikon 35mm SLR camera with me back
home while I was participating in treatment.
Music and photography were in my blood.
These were the things I
dreamed of pursuing in
my undergraduate college studies.
dead. What was it going to take to resurrect my
passion? Was it not enough to have the piano
and camera there in my possession and to have
the skill sets to use them?
Apparently, that’s not how it works. Passion, as
it turns out, is not formed out of a single substance. Passion is a science.
The Science
One way to interpret the science of passion is by
exploring the theory of
fire. There are four components that are required
to ignite a fire: fuel, heat,
oxygen (or another oxidizing agent), and a chain
reaction. “Sparking a
flame” to our passion also
requires our own “fuel,”
“heat,” and “oxygen”
to create the fire. Then, in order to sustain and
continue the fire that keeps our passion alive, a
“chain reaction” must be present.
“ To me, success is learning
how to rise
strong
and survive in
But, surprisingly, during
my entire course of treatment, I never touched my
keyboard or picked up
my camera. My soul was
just too empty to care. I was convinced that the
passion I once had within me was permanently
my surrounding conditions.”
“
It took a tremendous amount of introspection,
but after doing so, I was able to gain a clearer
understanding of what passion actually requires
and was able to figure out what made up those
components to “spark” my passion, which I am
happy to share with you.
Love is the essential
non-physical ingredient
.
for human The
survival
Fuel
Wikimedia Commons
When we believeThe
and
feelrepresents
like the subjects, topics, and
“fuel”
instruments that are the material representawe are loved, we will
beofmotivated
tions
expressing your passion. In some cases,
to keep our passions
alive
” may not discover them
and in other
cases,.you
you may have always known your fuel sources,
until later. Discovering my “fuel” was the easiest part, and it involves going back to the early
years of my childhood.
The image above is a diagram of the fire tetrahedron. The components labeled in the diagram are OXYGEN, HEAT, FUEL,
and CHAIN REACTION.
I was born in Tokyo, Japan, where I spent the
first 11 years of my life. At age two, during a vis-
“ Passion is a
26
ZOOM Autism through Many Lenses
human trait
A photo of me sitting in front of our family harpsichord (circa 1984)
it to the United States, my parents brought me
to the University of California at Los Angeles
where I received an official diagnosis of autism.
I began to develop speech around age four and
was enrolled in a few years of speech therapy
in an effort to “catch up” with the spoken and
written language used by my surrounding society. At the age of 6, I began classical training on
the piano. Not long afterward, I began to write
and compose my own material. Before I was
able to communicate with spoken or written
words, I communicated through music. As an
adult, I am able to communicate using speech
and writing in most situations. However, I still
do not consider words as my native language.
I have always struggled to fit in. I tend to be
shy, insecure, and still unsure of how to make or
keep friends and relationships. However, when
switched on “performance mode,” the shyness
and insecurity I once had disappears. My soul
transforms into a creature of raw emotion and
authenticity.
It was the black-and-white photography courses
I had taken as a junior high school student that
initially drew me to the camera. The idea of
capturing images, developing the negatives, and
printing in the dark room was a medium that I
fell instantly in love with. Through music and
art, I am able to communicate my emotions far
more accurately than I ever could through spoken or written language.
As childhood shifted to adolescence and adulthood, sexuality and relationships (romantic
and nonromantic) became my “alternative fuel”
sources of passion. Those interests, along with
my music and photography, were the only
components required to spark my passion, or so
I thought. As I would come to learn later in my
life, I could not have been more wrong.
The Oxygen
The oxidizing agent of your passion is what
ZOOM Autism through Many Lenses
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