Jaded and Confused

A viral wedding video is now hitting mainstream news after getting almost 2 million views in less than a week.  It is a New Zealand video of family and friends performing a traditional Maori war dance called the Haka to honor the bride and groom.  The video is filled passion, zeal, tears, and joy to the point where the bride and groom themselves are overcome with the same feelings.

Here is the video

The response to the video is what interests me the most.  We're not too familiar with these powerful emotions in our culture.  Or at least the first two I mentioned.  And it was quite evident in the massive response to this video that our culture doesn't even have a category for this level of zeal and passion for anything really.  We grind through our day at the office, we try not to stir the pot too much at home, we chuckle a little watching our favorite TV show, and then we do it all again the next day.  Were also incredibly jaded.  Americans are the most entertained culture in human history. But also the most bored culture in human history.  Is there anything more ironic?  We've seen it all –usually in chunks of about 30 second sound bites (because we don't really have a much longer attention span).  And because we don't have a category for this level of pure passion, we shovel it off as craziness, backwardness, etc to make ourselves feel better.  

Do you have anything in your life worth getting this passionate about?  Is there an aspect to your life that would ever stir you like this?  I'm convinced that the popularity of this video is primarily because we are stunned by such a rare picture of passion and zeal.  It is the rarity that leaves us confused; and hopefully leaves us thinking there might be more to human passion and the objects worthy of such, than the self-induced numbness we often find ourselves under.