We all have our pet things that we like to get religious about.

Hear the words of Max Cannon: “We all have our pet things that we like to get religious about.” At first, the saying is playful, almost offhand, yet beneath its humor lies an ancient and profound truth: that each of us carries within our hearts small altars of devotion, objects or passions we guard with almost sacred fervor. These may not be gods carved in stone, but they are revered with equal intensity—rituals of habit, tastes of preference, loyalties of identity.

To call them our pet things is to acknowledge their personal nature. They are not universal laws nor eternal truths, but matters of private attachment—whether music, food, sports, art, or even the tools we use in our work. Yet once chosen, we defend them fiercely, as if questioning them were heresy. Thus, Cannon’s choice of the word religious is fitting, for the devotion we give to these small passions mirrors the devotion once given to temples and shrines.

The ancients themselves were no strangers to this. In Rome, every household kept its lares and penates, little gods of the home, honored daily even as the empire worshipped Jupiter on high. In like manner, modern men and women keep their own hidden shrines: one may swear that no bread is better than his mother’s recipe, another that his chosen team is the only team worth cheering, yet another that a certain band or poet speaks with the voice of eternity. These pet devotions, though small in the grand scale of the cosmos, shape our lives with surprising force.

Consider the tale of Nikola Tesla, who grew almost mystical in his devotion to electricity. To him, it was not merely a force of nature but a divine language, a passion he pursued with a zeal that seemed more priestly than scientific. Others laughed at his eccentricities, his obsessions with numbers and pigeons, yet it was this near-religious devotion to his pet things that drove him to uncover truths that changed the world. What others dismissed as trivial, he exalted into destiny.

Yet Cannon’s words also carry a warning. To be religious about our small passions can inspire greatness, but it can also breed pettiness. How often do men quarrel, not over laws of heaven, but over trifles—over which food is superior, which way is best, whose taste is purest? Wars have begun over such devotions when magnified. Thus, we must be mindful: passion must be tempered by perspective, lest our little shrines become prisons that keep us from seeing the larger truth.

The lesson is this: recognize and honor your pet things, but do not mistake them for the whole of existence. It is good to love, to defend, to cherish what gives your life flavor and meaning—but also remember that others bow at different altars, and their devotions are as sacred to them as yours are to you. True wisdom lies not in mocking their attachments, nor in surrendering your own, but in respecting the variety of human shrines that together form the vast temple of culture.

Practically, this means: find joy in your chosen passions, but let them uplift rather than divide. Share them with others, but without scorn when they choose differently. Ask yourself whether your religious devotion inspires creativity, growth, and kindness—or whether it hardens your heart. If the former, embrace it fully; if the latter, learn to set it down. For passions are best when they are fires of warmth, not flames of destruction.

Therefore, O children of tomorrow, heed Cannon’s playful yet serious words. We all indeed have our pet things, our secret gods of devotion. Let us honor them, but not let them blind us. For the greatness of humanity is not in one shrine alone, but in the many, and in the wisdom to celebrate them all without losing sight of what is eternal.