How do you do it? Is it even possible? The things that make our passion exciting to us are hard to translate to people who haven't felt the things we feel. Among poker players, for example, it is hard to explain the soul-sucking defeat of having two outs or the absolute elation of playing a hand such that you get your opponent to put in their stack with only two outs. The non-technical translation ("That's a really good thing!") or even the somewhat technical translation ("Mathwise, I am a 90+% favorite.") really doesn't cut it. It's just one of those things that's hard to explain to others who haven't been in the trenches.
Travis recently tried to explain such a situation on his blog, and to be honest, even as someone who would like to think that she gets the game, I found his post rather boring to read (apologies, Trav). I think that has something to do with the passion. It's hard to translate that to people who don't love the game.
I manage to still have some people in my life that don't "get" poker. Even if they inquire about my play, I have learned to KISS (keep it simple, stupid) cause otherwise they get a glazed over look on their faces. Similar, I imagine, to how I felt the first time I tried to read Sklansky's "Theory of Poker."
I wish there was a way to translate the passion to people. If someone figures it out, let me know.
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