The passionate parrot is a symbol of discongruent behavior that I see from time to time in myself and others. I try to avoid it, as difficult as it is. You see we are often subject to ideas. Now, ideas can be very useful things or also completely harmful things. If we are not careful, we can at times find ourselves taking an idea, accepting it without judgement and then start parroting that idea about as if it was our own. We are, at best, a mimicry of the idea and at the best a spokesperson or mouthpiece. Sometimes we can get pretty passionate about these ideas as we share them with an intense, yet fake, enthusiasm that belies the fact that the idea is not really our own.
You ever see any passionate parrots? Do you see yourself as being one from time to time? You can tell when someone is being a passionate parrot pretty easily. I think humans have this built in detection method for this. When they are speaking, or I should say, rehearsing the idea you can tell that the are not really convinced themselves. Rather they are doing what they think they are supposed to do, what they are getting paid to do, or are so immature that they cannot think for themselves.
What we all really need to do is to take and evaluate ideas. Really consider their worth, value and worthiness to be part of us. Once we accept an idea, we can internalize it and then through experimentation make the idea our very own. After we are able to gain real experience with an idea and have tested its merits in the laboratory of life, then we can have real passion. That shows up very clearly. People can tell the difference.
I always like to ask myself, am I being a passionate parrot here? Have I really internalized this idea?
Guy Reams
