" Not helping this is my German background, which has a certain Hans Beinholtz character to it..."
This is just another excuse you keep coming up with. Bottom line is that it doesn't matter what your heritage, background or genetic makeup is. How you choose to live your life is up to YOU. It is YOUR CHOICE.
"I would like to show my kids a positive way of living, with passion, and interest, and kindness, and intelligence, and truth, and strength, and beauty, and ethics, and gentleness, and poetry, and books, and gardens, and creativity, and environmentalism, and righteous anger, etc etc."
While those are fine, is there anything a little more "masculine" you could show them? I mean, putting together a garden is fine, but didn't you say your W was the one who basically did more of the home construction? THAT is masculine.
"Does the passion for something come out of our actively assigning it to the something or does it arise more spontaneously? That is, do we decide or is it decided for us?"
You're still way over-thinking this. Passion is the drive to do something that you like to do just for the sake of doing it. Evidently gardening is a passion of yours and that's fine. But you have to translate that to all aspects of your life and not let fear stop you.
Start a project that you and your children and do together. Did you ever have them join anything like scouts or sports (team sports and not individual sports like swimming)? Do that with them. Something as simple as kicking a soccer ball together or throwing a frisbee will be fun. My kids and I enjoy playing video games together and going outside just to play tag or tossing a ball around. Your gestures dont' need to be grand ones. Start of small.
M-43 W-40 2D - 9 and 5
Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet a new life.
