Enthusiasm
If you translate “enthusiasm” from its Greek origin, it means “to be filled with God.”
Being filled with God is a pretty ideal, state, huh? If you think about all the great philosophers talking about the supreme state of a person, and asking “What is the good life?” it seems to me that being filled with God is as fitting of an answer as they could come up with. The pinnacle of emotion in this world is to be filled with something otherworldly. The Greeks decided to call that “enthusiasm.”
Enthusiasm is an overflow of emotion. The old use of the word means to be divinely inspired to do things like speaking in tongues. When the work is good and fluid, it almost is like we’re speaking in tongues: we’re done saying something we don’t fully understand before we even realize what we are doing.
The ideal state of a person is not composure, peace, or a stillness. It’s movement. Frenetic, excited, jubilant movement. It’s a sign of life. It is atoms vibrating and an eruption of potential into kinetic. But, in movement, enthusiasm is not necessarily accomplishment, power, or wealth, but an intense interest and enjoyment about the thing right in front of you. Enthusiasm is about the work at hand. To be enthusiastic is to be present, content and elated. That sounds like a happiness cocktail to me. Maybe the Greeks were on to something…
