MAN AND HIS PASSIONS.

It is becoming obvious that man cannot just avoid passions. Nature made man to live his authentic life in and with these passions, that for one to talk of passionless man is to be self contradicting. What is man if not a bundle of passions unfolding itself? If this proposition should serve as a definition, then it has the tendency of reducing man to the level of animals that are only instinctual.  There is no doubt hence that man is an animal sundered from the rest by his rationality. Rationality makes man what he is. If rationality is removed from man, even for a second, he would definitely return to his animalistic stage where only instinct rules. But despite this, it seems that the animalistic nature of man, most often than not imposes on him the tendency to live beyond the expectations of his rational self. What would have cause this except that man easily succumb to the dictates of his irrational self, sometimes, to the detriments of his rational being. The irrational self in man should be our concern in this work and this is what I regard as passions of man.

We should not also neglect the fact that passions of man is not only negative or opposing to virtues. They are not totally wrong and misleading. This is a fact. Passions build man, and the same passions destroy him. Passions are like fire. When fire is well guarded and controlled, it becomes the most reliable servant and friend you can ever think of. On the contrary, if you leave fire to grow wild, destruction is imminent. Likewise, guarded passions breeds an authentic man. Man devoid of passion is already in his grave. Passions of man serve him better when the man in question is capable of controlling it. Our act of the mind called will-power is therefore essentially needed for these passions to be put in check. When one’s will-power is weak, passions are capable of playing its destructive games on the person. Will-power is an act of the mind, born out of rationality endowed to man, that enables him to make decision on his own and hold on to that decision no matter the consequences that would eventually follow. Every rational man suppose to have this will-power. It is this will-power that is nursed to control our passions. It tells us when to act, when to withdraw from action, when to react  and the manner to do so.

Passions are as bad in grade as their being good. They build good and serene human society, but later destroy it. Passion is a servant as well as a master. In either of these two, it goes to the extreme. Man, being naturally engrossed in passion could not get himself liberated from it. Man is ontologically, a product of passion. To this extent, we could remember that even the very semen that produced man was released at the climax of passion. Following this example, one could reason with me that it is practically impossible to remove passion when issues relating the whole being of man is being discussed.

From birth, man moves towards his passions. His passions increase daily as the child is gradually growing into a man. The passion to survive moves the child to weep whenever it is hungry or tasty. This unconscious behaviour is to impose compassion on those around,  for them to satisfy its demands. Passion has led many to sexual gratifications. Sexual tendency as a passion in animal pushes it intercourse which invariably leads to prolongation of the animal species. Passion has tied up friends in an unconditional love. The same passion has made a mother to offer her own life in order to save her child. Passion to dominate, has built up many destructive weapons that keep many weaker societies in great fear of being trampled upon by their stronger counterparts. United Nations is a product such a passion. Passion of anger has terribly destroyed many homes, sent many to their early graves and violated seriously the law of human rights. When passions have nothing positive to contribute to the society and the well being of mankind, such passion is regarded as being erroneous. Many other atrocities committed by erroneous passions can never be totally exhausted here and now.  But by the way of introduction, I just want to create the awareness that the most terrible enemy of mankind has been discovered. It has been eating deep into the marrows of men, undiscovered. I have the intention then to unmask the enemy who is no other person except the unthinking self in man. The irrational self, otherwise called passion.

© Ugonna JB Ezeomedo, SMMM.

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