Embracing Inner Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm is a breath from within, a spark that, once lit, makes each step feel lighter. It cannot be explained, only felt — like a wind that sweeps away the dust of monotony and makes space for the quiet brilliance of ordinary things.

Motivation is something else entirely. It comes and goes, a fleeting impulse dependent on something outside of us. A desire, a promise, a goal to be reached. But without enthusiasm, motivation tires. And what tires too much, eventually gives up.

Disinterest, on the other hand, is a dead weight. An emptiness at the centre of the chest where nothing grows. Life passes by, and one merely observes, without the will to reach out and touch it. The body senses it: shoulders sag, the gaze loses its light, breathing becomes shallow. Energy stagnates, time drags on, and everything feels like an unnecessary effort.

But enthusiasm — ah, enthusiasm! — it has roots of its own. It needs no applause, no encouragement, no reward. It arises when we find meaning in the smallest of things, when we sense something calling us without knowing why. Enthusiasm gives courage, puts light in the eyes, sharpens the awareness of what truly matters.

In healing, in work, in the quiet unfolding of days, it is the hidden key. Patients with enthusiasm recover more quickly. Lives lived with enthusiasm feel lighter. Because enthusiasm does not deny challenges; it dances with them, finds a rhythm, and moves forward.

And if it is missing? Then it must be sought — not with desperation, but with gentleness. As one might learn again to see the world, to feel the body, to listen to the silence without rush. For enthusiasm, when it returns, does not announce itself. It simply takes over.

Comments

The Fallacy of Self‑Sufficiency

Some people will tell you — quite loudly, usually — that they are enough. They need no one, thank you very much. Entirely self‑made. A closed circuit. I, too, fancied myself an island at one time. A small, sturdy principality of one. I paid my own bills. Made my own tea. I even spoke aloud to myself in the supermarket queue, which was meant to prove something. But late at night, when all the heroic independence had been done for the day, there it was — a sort of homesickness without a forwarding address. You know the feeling. You’re supposedly sovereign, but you still wish someone would knock. Self‑sufficiency is a word that weighs a bit too much. It sounds like an insurance policy or a piece of camping equipment. It promises freedom, but only the kind you can fit in a box. Like eating an entire birthday cake alone — which, I confess, I’ve done. Because the truth (and it arrives, as truths tend to, when you’ve just burned your toast) is that we are made of others. We are es...

The Progressive Misreading of Silence

At 5, I entered rooms like a murmur. I was already listening for something behind the noise — something older than voices, softer than footsteps. “He’s such a well-behaved boy,” they said, smiling with relief. But what they mistook for virtue was only quiet intuition. I was not good. I was attuned. At 11, I had mastered the art of presence without weight. I could sit by the window for hours, watching the wind pass through the trees like thought through the body. “He’s quiet,” they would say — gently, but with a trace of discomfort. They couldn’t name the feeling of someone watching without need. At 17, I was called “mature.” But maturity is not a virtue — it is a scar. I had already seen the shape of endings before others saw beginnings. Friends came to me like tide to stone, hoping to be held. I held them, yes — but not always with words. Sometimes silence is the only honest offering. At 24, my stillness no longer charmed. The world asked for brightness, momentum, performa...

Clarity Begins Where Pretence Ends

At some quiet juncture, without spectacle or warning, the architecture of one’s life begins to feel misaligned. The roles once worn with ease grow heavy; the rhythm once followed now falters. In that stillness — where noise gives way to unease — emerges a longing not for more, but for truth. Not the polished kind offered by others, but the raw clarity that demands a reckoning with who we are, beneath all that we’ve built. At that point, we no longer seek applause, distraction, or even resolution. What we seek is clarity — elemental, grounding, liberating. But this clarity is not the kind that flatters. It is not decorative. It is not curated for display. It is the kind that requires dismantling illusions, reordering assumptions, and exposing the scaffolding that holds our being together. To know oneself is not a sentimental pursuit. It is an architectural one. Each insight is a cornerstone; each falsehood identified, a wall removed. We begin, not with grand gestures, but wi...

The Hyggelig Journey

Search This Blog