Rhoda asked:

I would just want to ask about enthusiasm...what it means and what are some reflections of
philosophers about it?

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This is actually a very interesting question to me. As far as reflections of philosophers on
"enthusiasm" or "motivation", I do not really know of too many, except perhaps some of the
Existentialists... I think you might get something out of Heidegger here, and probably you could relate
the thesis of books like Nausea to this topic, i.e., boredom as the opposite of enthusiasm. Colin
Wilson, actually, has written about the generation of enthusiasm or "intensity" in this regard.

But there is another aspect that is interesting, and that is the relationship between enthusiasm and
motivation and learning. That is, given enough motivation, people can accomplish extraordinary
things. But this degree of motivation is rare; why is that? In other words, why can we not just decide
to be enthusiastic about something, the way we decide to walk in a certain direction? Of course,
considered as an emotion, we have problems deciding to feel anything... one of the great and tragic
human limitations. But I also would like to see motivation treated as "intelligence" is treated, i.e., as a
characteristic that might very well be innate, and something that could be tested for, and that we
could educate children to develop. We try to "motivate" children, but we do not try to educate children
to motivate themselves. Why not? Because, mostly, wedo not know how to motivate ourselves. So
this should be studied, and as far as I know it has not been. You might also look at John Dewey on
this topic.

Steven Ravett Brown