So let's see.  
Funny how things work.
I was, of course, thinking about our conversation as I was driving home--remember we were talking about passion, about risk, (about life actually I guess, or more rightfully stated about how one might live, or experience their living,) and when I finally quieted down the racket in my head long enough to listen to the music playing on the radio, I couldn't help but smile.  

First it was Mozart's 21st piano concerto in C, now so often linked to the tragedy of Elvira Madigan, and then it was Bellini's opera about Romeo and Juliet.  Each a classic tale about passion gone amuck.  You know, with dead heroes and heroines all in the name or the service of love.  And then I thought about O'Henry's story, The Gift of the Magi, you remember, the one where she cuts her hair to give him a fob for his watch and he sells the watch to buy a bourette for her long hair.  
And I thought, this isn't so good. 

Why is it that in all these cases, passion,  especially this unbridled passion (which I quite believe is the essence of life and living) leads to all this waste.  How is it that passion which I think of as creative and good becomes this wanton and destructive tragedy.
Hmm.
Well I was forced to dig a little deeper and cull from the wisdom lent us by some other masters, that we might round out the picture a little.  You know, add a little spit and fire, for God's sake, or at least some piss and vinegar so that we might be left with live and lively heroes and heroines.  I mean let's get a life, here, you know!

So then I thought of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton and Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, and Ayn Rand's Novel, Atlas Shrugged, and the movie with Kathryn Hepburn and Peter O'Toole, The Lion in Winter, and I thought, now,  this ain't so bad after all.
Ha!  so it is not the passion that is faulty.
 
I mean, it's not passion that leads one astray and down the road amuck. 

It is not the passion which is responsible for the tragedy which unfolds. 

It is instead the lack of clear vision about the context or values, if you will, which the passion was intended to serve. 
Whew! 

Like what, you ask. 
(I smile,) what do you think, I ask. 
Ha, don't even think to say you don't know. Of course you know.  You may not like it, but of course you know.

            {Funny you know, because, of all the times we've talked about
            allowing for shades of gray, this is one arena wherein I brook
            (verb; to allow, endure, tolerate) no shades of gray.  It is all screaming
            reds and purples and like that  And grays here, speak to the unspeakable,
            which to me, in my life, is mediocrity and then boredom. 
            Oh my goodness, I overspeak myself.}

So I guess without further ado and mystery it is important to say that limits have to do with self preservation.  Yes they create a certain indelible tension between what one can and cannot have, but it puts one on alert, it reminds one that everything has a cost, has a price, carries with it a risk.  But remember, passion is one of those things that is even more risky to everyone involved when there are no limits (border, boundary, confines, edge, ceiling, lid, limitation, restrictions maximum, extreme, absolute, ultimate.)

And this brings us then to those other things which are so ubiquitous (pervasive, everywhere, ever present) like risk and risk taking, and informed consent and informed dissent, and ebb and flow, and choices and choosing, and powerfulness and powerlessness-- and again it is important that our understanding and experience of these things serve our values and support us in living in accordance with our belief system.

Limits have to do with context (background, circumstances, condition, framework, setting situation) and so with the shape of something and so then with our ability to understand and perceive it in a meaningful way, you know, so that it can be known. 

Limits erase that cloud of unknowing so that we may make informed decisions and thus minimize the risks because we know what they are and it is this that returns the locus of control (and so, the power) to each of us in our role of decision maker.

Limits allow for honesty, integrity, creativity and, oh my goodness, hmm
limits allow for a sense of self, yes indeedy, they do and it is as simple as that. ha!
I bow to you, hands folded under my chin and say thanks for talking.
                                                    
passion
(c) 2002-03jgoldberg