The Death of Idealism

It is “a truth universally acknowledged” (to borrow the words of a better writer than myself) that young people are too naïve for our own good. We come into this world wide-eyed and wonder-full, ready to solve its problems by the sheer power of our own sincerity. We make ourselves vulnerable on purpose, innocent enough to think that our authenticity will protect us. Faces unmasked, emotions unhidden, our innocence showing through our attempts to be grown-up: "Do you want to be my best friend?"

Somewhere along the line, though, we start to suffer from that blessing & curse we call 'experience.' We learn about war, cruelty, manipulation, and conflicts of interest. We suffer from diseases like selfishness, lethargy, and desensitization. We 'grow up.' Our dreams of Astronautism, Firefighterism, and Cowboyism slowly move down the line of idealism: Poet, Pilot, Policeman, Painter; Lover, Linguist, Lawyer, Land Titles Agent....and it invariably happens as we get older. You won't find a 12 year-old dreaming about Accounting, and then deciding at 18 that he really wants to be an acrobat. Somewhere in the dozen or so years between dreaming and 'settling,' a transformation takes place--The Death of Idealism.

What is the reason for this slow erosion of our passion? Can it be true, like some cynics say, that humans are simply awful, and that we can only cut our losses and join in the materialistic madness that defines our society? Or is it perhaps the truth that the collective jadedness of our society has a ‘critical mass’—relentlessly dragging us down like gravity from our would-be flights of fancy? And, like gravity, this grimness permeates our lives, gradually squishing us down to the level of everyone else. We begin to see it as a simple truth, an unfortunate reality that we’ll never overcome. We stop drawing sketches of birds' wings and trying to find a garbage bag big enough to use as a parachute, and instead start watching reality TV shows. In short, our idealism dies.

Somehow though, it needs to be reborn. It can happen; perhaps it is via a TED talk about doing what you love, or the painting you just noticed on the coffee-shop wall, or the way the sky is lit up by 1 million colors during tonight's sunset, or the poem you read this morning. We humans need inspiration like we need respiration.

So let us not belittle our dreamers--the ones who proudly enroll in Sociology even though their supervisor at Starbucks has a masters in English. Let us boldly say "that's really awesome, you should go for it" when honored with another person's dreams. For it is not the amount of cash and the couches and cars that make our world a good place to live, it is the prevalence of those wide-eyed and wonder-full innocents; the endangered species of idealists. Let us instead "go forward together," striding past the all-too-tempting scent of apathy that distracts us from our ideals.