The true meaning of words

Today I pondered over two pairs of words.

guide/inspire

I used to think that I was "innovative" enough to be able to see teachers as facilitators rather than knowledge-feeders. Being facilitators, a teachers job would be to GUIDE students in their learning. However, today I realise I was not exactly correct; so guide means to already have a planned path chosen by the guider, and to keep an eye on the follower such that he does not go off-track. To inspire leaves the decision to the learner, who will have to choose the path he wants to take and the path that he believes is good for himself and is what he ultimately wants. Then the inspiration comes from the inspirer (teacher) who sparks off this deep passion in the learner, to want to pursue his goal in life. To inspire, we guide in accordance to their passion, not ours.

interest/passion

We all like to do what we are interested to do. Some of us like music; what sort of music? One may like to sing but know nuts about manuscript notation and chords; another may not like music as taught in schools but is a die-hard fan who must catch every season and every episode of American's Idol and has his own version of criticism towards why a contestant should not receive the verdict as on the show; yet another student musician may play the trombone really well, but has never played in an orchestra before, thus the lack of orchestral experience to a very large extent that impedes his progress.

The point is we tend to interchangebly use the words interest and passion. An interest is like a hobby, which means a chosen liking for a particular thing or activity. Passion is being in love with something so deeply that we may get obsessed or may even claim that we will die without it. An interest can die off anytime, anywhere: you may be a coffee drinker, but one day decide you no longer like coffee and you switch to tea or even a totally caffeine-free diet. This is so true when you see the teenage boy's pair of skates chucked away in a corner to collect dust when he used to refuse to put it down at one point in time.

A passion needs nothing to sustain, and in fact fuels our lives and energizes us to perform other mandatory tasks which we may not enjoy. An interest is like a cherished liability that we do not mind spending our excess awake-ness for an exchange of momentary happiness.