Idealism?

I initially wrote this post as a reply to MattQB's and Kamil's posts, but because it's 4 o'clock in the morning something slightly less coherent came out. It's my blog though and I can post what I want, even if it's crap :D I might be a slight bit blunt in this post. Not because I actually think like this, but because it helps me put things into perspective.

What is idealism? What's the point of it? Is it having some wonderful image of the world in your head? Having a goal to life for? Idealism is just seeing the world better than it really is. It's just something you want but you cannot get. Pursuing idealism just means that you have some goal in your life that you are working for.

So what would that goal be? Most people who are smart enough to know of the word idealism know that it might be nice to desire something 'higher' in life than just pleasing themselves. Be it helping children in Africa, donating money to charity, trying to save the planet, a higher goal is easy to pick. Just devote your life to it and start feeling good about yourself.

So what if you are not pursuing some higher goal in life? What if your goal is just something small, something easy to get? I guess we can't define that as idealism, then? It just means our ideals are different. A lot of my friends are in my field of work, and a lot of them are looking for a higher purpose or some greater good than just 'doing something with hardware or software'. I am not.

For some reason I cannot relate to some higher purpose. I cannot be a true idealist, because my ideals are not out of reach. I will move further away from my ideals if I spend a lifetime devoting myself to people I don't even know (for example). For my friends however, it's a different matter. If there is anything I can do to help them or to somehow make their life better, I would absolutely do it. Why? I don't know. Different ideals, I guess.

Life sucks without a goal. In my opinion choosing a 'higher' goal is taking the easy way out. Just helping people, doing something for humanity or for the environment, volunteer work, that just doesn't do it for me. There must be something more out there.

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