On not knowing what your thing is

Notes on passion, talent and trying to find things to love

1.      

I’m seated behind two strangers on a plane and they’re making small talk. At first it is strained—the woman removes an earbud to listen, but hovers it by her chin. Polite nods are interspersed with glances back to a screen where the film The Mummy is paused.

I miss the precise moment the sense of engagement shifts, but there is something so charmingly animated in the way the man is talking about Brendan Fraser that eventually the woman’s headphones are set aside, and she becomes absorbed in the discussion of the actor’s filmography.

Then the man asks, “So what’s your thing, then?” Meaning, what’s the thing you are passionate about, the thing that animates you, the thing you want to tell strangers on a plane about.

At this point, I’m both begrudging the fact I’m not in the seat ahead having this conversation, but also relieved because I wouldn’t know how to answer.

I don’t have a thing.

Perhaps there’s little consequence to not knowing a lot about a certain topic. But the question l…