The Other Blog

There’s a song by Joe Satriani called “The Extremist”, and the title for this post may be inspired a little bit by that. Anyway…

Yesterday, I posted what could be classified as a poem, about rebellion. I posted about how I’m always against the flow. That’s true. I somehow always find myself doing what everyone else is not. Why? Not completely sure… maybe it’s just this desire to break the cycle, to be free from social norms, from what everyone else is doing or is supposed to do. Whatever. So far, it’s been quite easy for me to be a rebel. I’ve not had major problems with anything.

However, I’ve been thinking (not unnatural for me, is it?) … About how people sometimes claim to have the perfect answer to everything (or at least to most things). It’s highly amusing, however, to ask 6 different people what their perfect solution to a given scenario is, and then get at least 3-4 DIFFERENT perfect solutions, each contradicting the other. The first point I’m making is that please do not assume that you have got the perfect solution to something, and that all other solutions are not as good as yours. (Feel free to replace the word “perfect” by “ideal” in this paragraph, since the post is titled “The Idealist” and not “The Perfectionist”).

Secondly, let’s play with the word “ideal”. One meaning is, broadly and simply put, “perfect”, which you’ve just read about in the previous paragraph. The other meaning is “a principle or value that one actively pursues as a goal“, and obvious, these principles are highly subjective. All of us have our own ideals, and some go to extreme lengths to live with these ideals. However, remember… this is not a perfect world. This is the practical world, and though I’ve used this phrase so many times that now it feels like it was probably the first thing I learnt too say in English, the real world is a rat-race. You won’t win by not being a rat, whether you like to admit it or not.

I’m not advising you to give up your ideals. Just remember, however, that you live in the real world. Find the balance between being a rat and being the idealist. Being too much of the former may get you further down the path of social success, fame, recognition and all things we’re meant to reach for, but if you have a conscience, or any ideals at all, you’ll have problems looking yourself in the eye. Being too much the idealist, however, may give you inner strength, peace of mind to a certain extent, and character, but it may leave you wanting in a lot of areas which actually are important, but we hate admitting them.

You may not completely understand this post. Or maybe you’re thinking it’s crap. Apologies, but it’s close to 11pm, and though I don’t feel very sleepy/tired this early, I am feeling spent today. In less than 15 minutes, I aim to be in bed. Good Night.

PS: Maybe “The Idealist” wasn’t the right name for this post… It should/could have been “The Balance” or “Ying-Yang”.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 2nd, 2007 at 10:58 pm and is filed under Think. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.