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Get Real

“Idealists are the true realists.”

~ Viktor Frankl:  author / Holocaust survivor / courageous soul  Man’s Search for Meaning.

I remember as a kid that I was teased (and even reprimanded or scolded) quite a bit about ‘daydreaming’ and being off in a mental netherworld that I created vs being in the space that those around me were occupying. Not quite the ‘get your head outta your…..” admonition, yet none-the-less, language appropriate for an elementary school aged child to “shape up, pay attention, fly right!”

Teachers would move my desk away from the windows (thinking there were out-there distractions) over to the opposite side of the room in the row of desks against the wall. They would then even (eventually) move my seating to front-and-center so I would be under their watchful eye. Little did they get it ~ the “distractions” were in-here ~ not out-there. I’d drift away no matter where I was sitting in the room.  Looking back, I find it quite amusing. At the time it was, actually, confusing.

So what’s daydreaming, and en/visioning got to do with Idealism?  I realize as I reflect, that most all of the in-here trips I would take had ‘happy endings.’  Good won out.  Best case scenarios were de rigueur  in my wonderful world.  ‘Justice prevailed.’ The heroine {usually me} carried the day. If all of that didn’t set the stage for Idealism, I don’t know what did !!

One definition for Idealism I came across stated:

the practice of forming or pursuing ideals, especially unrealistically; utopianism, wishful thinking, romanticism, fantasizing, quixotism, impracticality. (Oh me ~ oh my !!! 

Those negatively-judged airy-fairy expectations!)

According to the same sources, Realism is: the attribute of accepting the facts of life. Huh.  Whose life?  Whose facts?  (Try telling that to any Recovering person !!)

Every day, there are findings and research that contradict (and even prove false) the ‘facts’ of the past … sometimes of the recent-recent past. Those ‘Realities.’  Huh. Whose reality … whose facts?  What changed???  {Psst… don’t be overly concerned. Today’s new facts and ‘realities’ will change again too, more likely than not.)

In my view, Frankl had it correct. Idealism is the true reality. It is based on those universal values and virtues ~ those high-side emotions. The gut feelings about the human connection that goes beyond ‘the outer wrapper’ that first snags one’s attention.  Give yourself permission to go there.

And … kudos to that sweet kid who daydreamed !!

Namaste’ Lin