Passion for different things can come and go. When I watched the DCI finals, I pulled an old passion off the shelf for a day or two and gave it a good dusting off. After I experienced it for a couple of days I felt that it was time to put it back where I wouldn’t forget it so easily, but that was it. In fact, I’m sure you have a few things that you are passionate about that you treat in the same way.

That’s the normal order of things. If we were constantly passionate about everything that has ever captured our imaginations and hearts, we would all be extremely intense and annoying people. You may know someone like that… I know I have.

But what about a passion that’s forced dormant because of negative experiences associated with them? How do you “get back on the horse” and renew the pursuit of your passion when this happens?

For example, I have had a passion for creating short digital films for many years. It all started as a kid playing around with the family camcorder. Somewhere in my garage I have a few dusty VHS tapes full of the likes of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Elvis Freddy”… cobbed together with the finest care by editing from one VHS recorder to another. This went on through high school. While in college I bought my own Video8 camcorder and an Iomega Buz, learned to edit in Adobe Premiere 4.2, and went from there. Such hits as Look Who’s Hawking and Sugar Frosted Crack were born.

I turned this passion into a career. I took a position at a low power UHF station in my college town and made a whopping $7,200/yr. producing and directing local TV programming. It was about the passion, not the money. Eventually it became about the money, and I took my first agency job. I was living the dream, turning my passion for filmmaking (I use that term loosely) into a career creating television commercials.

I’ve been living that dream for nearly ten years now, but I have a confession to make… I’ve lost my taste for making short digital films.

You see, I had a very negative experience at one of my past positions with a person who tainted all that I loved about working with video. He turned that joy of expression into a drudgery that turned my stomach every time I approached the task.

This angers me. The fact that I had to endure such an unpleasant and unprofessional experience while those who had the power to remedy the problem turned (and continue to turn, I’m told) a blind eye to the situation is the smallest portion of my anger. What really gets me is that a large component of my self-definition was yanked out and stomped on.

I no longer make television commercials. My decision to deviate from my overall career path has much more to do with the fact that I feel that I can apply my television knowledge to the future of interactive media than it does my negative experience, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t color that decision to a degree.

This anger tells me that my passion is still alive, which is good. I don’t want to lose that passion… as much for maintaining that part of what defines me as for the fact that I will not let that experience beat me.

But, it’s tough. Work on Tiki Bar is slow not because it’s difficult (although it is), but because it’s video and I have that mental block. I feel that desire to make a new digital short stirring but that mental block stops me from coming up with a concept. Same with the reason why I don’t think I attend meetings for the Independent Filmmakers Coalition of Kansas City. I used to be very active in that group before this experience.

What are the answers to getting over this setback? I think I’m asking you as much as I’m trying to tell you what I think. Obviously, “suck it up” is the first and foremost item. When daredevils get injured performing a stunt, they have to get right back in there and keep taking risks to ensure that they don’t lose their fearlessness. My worry is that too much time has passed and that I’ve let that fear set in. Another way is to look back on the things you’ve achieved pursuing that passion as a way of showing you that you’ve been capable of doing it, and you can surely do it again, perhaps better and stronger than before.

I’m now about one year and several hundred miles away from the cause of my loss of passion, so it’s time to get past it and move on.

It’s apparent to me that I need to get out there and make a digital short about something… ANYTHING, really. But first I need to prioritize. Tiki Bar comes first. I can tell you that it won’t be done by October 1 (big surprise) but hopefully by mid-October.

So, again I turn it over to you. How do you overcome setbacks that put out your fire for something?