Enthusiasm

It is Rene Descartes who once said

To be incapable of enthusiasm is a sign of mediocrity. 

There are people in whose presence we feel all charged up.  They exude enthusiasm and make the whole atmosphere lively. There are others who are wet blankets! Some have this special grace of charging others but remaining inert themselves... just like the ones at the baseline of a sprint race; they call out 1, 2, 3 but while the sprinters charge forward they remain where they are! Some are conks in a desert.  Drained of all vitality they are as dead as can be.