andrewducker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andrewducker) wrote2007-08-26 11:18 pm
andrewducker) wrote2007-08-26 11:18 pm
The world can't live up to my idealism
Way back in June I posted a poll asking whether people were satisfied with life. I meant to post something a few days later explaining why I wasn't - but as usual life intervened. I never seemed to be in the right mood to write about _why_ I'm not satisfied with life. Because I'm fundamentally not.
Which isn't to say that I can't enjoy life (I do, a lot of the time) or be happy (I am, a lot of the time) - it's just that underlying it all is the knowledge that real, actual, physical life doesn't live up to my idealised feeling of how life should be. I'm an idealist at heart - I _know_ how life should be, and I'm disappointed when the realities and complexities of actual life differ from that. Reality feels like a busted wonder, a badly specified system, a brain-damaged genius - there are occasional flashes of how it should be, and a lot of the time you can see the sheer beauty of which it's capable, but there's always a niggling feeling of failure wrapped up in it. The world should have magic around every corner, and no matter how wonderful the things in it are they just don't live up to that.
And I also know that this attitude isn't reasonable, or logical - the world is what it is, and being disappointed because it fundamentally differs from how I'd like it to doesn't help in any way. But this isn't logical - it's pure emotion, and not something I've ever found a way of dealing with. Not that it bothers me much 99% of the time - and not at all 95% of it. But occasionally, when I get into a black mood, I'm reminded of it - and that no matter what, I'm never completely satisfied with the world.
Which isn't to say that I can't enjoy life (I do, a lot of the time) or be happy (I am, a lot of the time) - it's just that underlying it all is the knowledge that real, actual, physical life doesn't live up to my idealised feeling of how life should be. I'm an idealist at heart - I _know_ how life should be, and I'm disappointed when the realities and complexities of actual life differ from that. Reality feels like a busted wonder, a badly specified system, a brain-damaged genius - there are occasional flashes of how it should be, and a lot of the time you can see the sheer beauty of which it's capable, but there's always a niggling feeling of failure wrapped up in it. The world should have magic around every corner, and no matter how wonderful the things in it are they just don't live up to that.
And I also know that this attitude isn't reasonable, or logical - the world is what it is, and being disappointed because it fundamentally differs from how I'd like it to doesn't help in any way. But this isn't logical - it's pure emotion, and not something I've ever found a way of dealing with. Not that it bothers me much 99% of the time - and not at all 95% of it. But occasionally, when I get into a black mood, I'm reminded of it - and that no matter what, I'm never completely satisfied with the world.
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I tend to enjoy the complexity of emotions and the chaos of life. Viewing it more as challenges and learning curves. It is the idea of this adaptability and change that I enjoy most. I mostly don't see things as good or bad, more a confusion of states. My mood at the time can alter perception of the same scenario.
I suppose it could be argued that I shun the idea of perfection because I view it as unachievable and prefer to have my feet in reality over idealism.
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You're talking as if I have a choice...
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