Also by Eric Hoffer The True Believer The Passionate State of Mind and other aphorisms by Eric Hoffer HARPER & ROW, PUBLISHERS NEW YORK, EVANSTON, AND LONDON THE PASSIONATE STATE OF MIND and Other Aphorisms Copyright, 1954, 1955, by Eric Hoffer Printed in the United States of America All rights in this book are reserved. No part of the book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written per mission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For in formation address Harper if Row, Publishers, In corporated, 49 E. 33rd Street, New York 16, N. Y. Library of Congress catalog card number: 55-6581 To E L I Z A B E TH L A W R E N CE The Passionate State of Mind 1 T H E RE is in most passions a shrinking away from ourselves. The passionate pursuer has all the earmarks of a fugitive. Passions usually have their roots in that which is blemished, crippled, incomplete and insecure within us. The passionate attitude is less a response to stim uli from without than an emanation of an inner dissatisfaction. 2 A P O I G N A NT dissatisfaction, whatever be its cause, is at bottom a dissatisfaction with ourselves. It is surprising how much hardship and humiliation a man will endure without bitterness when he has not the least doubt about his worth or when he is so integrated with others that he is not aware of a sepa rate self. 3 T H AT we pursue something passionately does not always mean that we really want it or have a special aptitude for it. Often, the thing we pursue most passionately is but a substitute for the one thing we really want and cannot have. It is usually safe to pre dict that the fulfillment of an excessively cherished desire is not likely to still our nagging anxiety. In every passionate pursuit, the pursuit counts more than the object pursued. 4 IT S E E MS that we are most busy when we do not do the one thing we ought to do; most greedy when we cannot have the one thing we really want; most hurried when we can never arrive; most self-righteous when irrevocably in the wrong. There is apparently a link between excess and unattainability. 2 5 IT IS strange how the moment we have reason to be dissatisfied with ourselves we are set upon by a pack of insistent clamorous desires. Is desire some how an expression of the centrifugal force that tears and pulls us away from an undesirable self? A gain in self-esteem usually reduces the pull of the appetites, while a crisis in self-esteem is likely to cause a weaken ing or a complete breakdown of self-discipline. Asceticism is sometimes a deliberate effort to reverse a reaction in the chemistry of our soul: by suppressing desire we try to rebuild and bolster self-esteem. 6 TO B E L I E VE that if we could but have this or that we would be happy is to suppress the realization that the cause of our unhappiness is in our inadequate and blemished selves. Excessive desire is thus a means of suppressing our sense of worthlessness. 3