Be it through ill fate or good fortune: I’ve always cared about the world. I was passionate about the well-being of those around me and I paid very close attention to all the human beings I interacted with on a daily basis: be it at home, at school or out on the street. And be it a curse or a blessing: I was able to empathize with almost every single one of them. I saw my own reflection in their eyes, in those who returned my gaze just as those who fled it like a house fire.

“Ты чё зыришь?” (the fuck you looking at?)

I witnessed. I felt the joy and happiness of others, just as I felt their suffering and pain. As a little kid I was never shy to express my visions for a brighter future: a world where people of all races and creeds get along, a world were baby elephants aren’t killed for their precious tusks, a world where we don’t pollute the planet that births and nourishes us, a world where my parents don’t hate each other’s guts.

As I got older, these outbursts of passion dwindled and dried up, until they only came out in bouts of drunken rambling to complete strangers at 3AM in some back alley. And the yet even when they did, again and again they were met this statement:

“Ahh well, you’re just an idealist”

A sentiment that is often served luke warm with a side of a “pity smile”

“You’re still young, idealism doesn’t last”

And they were right, it didn’t. I became a cynical, bitter 21 year old. I trusted no one, I was incapable of love or being loved, I hurt those around me but fortunately (and unfortunately) never as much as I hurt myself. The “idealist” in me died and yet very little was offered to fill its void.

So what do we mean when call somebody an idealist?

Is it the philosophical school of thought that places Ideas before matter in the endless chicken or the egg conundrum?

Or is “the practice of forming or pursuing ideals, especially unrealistically” as per Google’s definition numero uno.

It’s funny how “especially unrealistically” has worked its way into a one sentence definition of what I would colloquially define as “holding value” In our modern world, holding a set of values is “especially unrealistic”?

How’s that for cynical world-view?

To put it upfront — today I am no idealist, not in any sense of this word. I ground myself firmly in lived experience and in the physical world around me: honing my ability to interact with it in a loving, affirming and playful way. However what I wish to address with this essay are the glaring inconsistencies; the mislabeling of intention and the blatant violence done onto our ability to formulate, express and hold values. I am writing this in response to the corroding statement: “you are just an idealist” that holds all the bitterness of unfulfilled expectations of the world and allows it to poison our hearts; allows it to spread through our bodies, our actions and our thoughts like a deadly virus. Sweeping under the rug the very seeds of a good life, labeling the process: “idealistic” and the status-quo: “inescapable”, “natural”, or just a “dog-eat-dog world.”

Yes, could you split the bill please? Thank you

It’s 9AM and I’ve just finished eating a particularly dry and small croissant which I washed down with a large quantity of washed-down coffee.

Yummm

Across from me is a man in an ill-fitting suit, finishing up what could only be described as the “who’s-teaching-who?” mentorship opportunity. Little did I know this would be the type of mentorship I would receive for many years to come. The one-directional, self-serving, self-aggrandizing monologue that helps the mentor feel authority, power and justify themselves in their own particular circumstance. It usually involves putting down everything you know or are capable of doing and introduces the “secret”. One that doesn’t empower, enable or build self-responsibility but instead one that looks to polish the golden carrot at the end of a particularly perverse stick of motivation.

“You see that car? You can be driving a car like this. You see this house? You can have a house like this one day. You see my hot, 20-year old girlfriend? You could have a girlfriend like this one day”

Being raised courteous and polite, atop of my non-confrontational nature, I nod along to everything that is being said: as more and more is being said seemingly with out an end. The floodgates of mentorship have opened! Naturally, I am a little relieved when the bill finally arrives. However I am quite surprised when the waitress gives a piece of paper to both me and my loquacious companion.

Shitty Hotel Cafeteria
Charlotte, North Carolina

Coffee — $1.00
Croissant — $2.50
________________
Total: $3.50

Tax included, thank God! I take the piece of paper and stare at it for a moment. I look at my mentor as he quickly settles up with his platinum ultra elite super-star rewards card. I pull out a crumpled-up $20, pass it to the waitress and wait for change.

The relentless battle for your piece of the American dream is akin to any blind, radical idealism that we so often attribute to terrorists, fascists or cult leaders.

When we lose the ability to perceive value, we lose everything. When we don’t trust ourselves in knowing right from wrong, we become mere tools of someone else’s intention.

This reminds me of a valuable idea; a lesson that’s not a secret to many but recently well re-interpreted in a book called the “Atomic Habits” by James Clear (a great pseudonym?) In the book, James clearly demonstrates that goals that are rooted in outcomes alone e.g. a nice car, a house, a hot wife, rarely achieve their desired outcomes. Instead James suggest one should strive to “embody” success, to aim at the process itself, to aim to be a person who creates value e.g. that guy who picks up a piece of garbage on the street, the girl that holds the door ahead of you or the people who are always there at your favourite bar (Drom Taberna)

Back at the cheap hotel cafeteria, I hadn’t learned this valuable lesson yet, but nonetheless I had a strong sense that whatever my mentor was saying had little do with with what he was doing. That being the very discrepancy we often attribute to “idealists” and how especially unrealistic their claims for a better world may seem. The reality is that we’re surrounded by false prophets, by unhappy, physically and emotionally crippled human beings who suffer at the hands of the status quo and yet blindly preach its nauseating sermons.

“If you listen to me, you’re going to go far kid!”

But nothing could be further from the truth. Looking past the golden watch and the BMW, what I saw and continue to see are men and women who are not in touch with their emotions, riddled with addictions, going through or nearing a divorce, with little to no relationship with their kids, no real friends and a manic focus on tasks that create little to no value outside of an abstraction that somehow cruelly sustains this hell on earth that they call life.

If “idealism” means that I hope to avoid this reality; that I hope to grow holistically as a human being; that I hope to create value and build community, then you can go ahead and tattoo it on my sturdy Georgian forehead.

Trusting your inherent ability to perceive value is the most practical thing you can do.

It is firmly grounded not in some ether of ideas, theories or concepts, but rather in your direct experience of life: the way you feel when someone lends you a helping hand, the way you feel when someone teaches you a valuable skill and empowers you to wield it for your own benefit. These are the fundamental building blocks of a fulfilling life, ones that don’t shield you from suffering but instead well-equip you for the challenging and rewarding journey that lays ahead.

When I grow up, I want to be the kind of person that doesn’t use circumstantially given authority to make myself feel better about myself. I want to empower the next generation and teach them to trust their inherent abilities: teach them to grow and expand these abilities to a point where they are able to sustain themselves.

First and foremost.

And through mastering that process truly begin to be able to give to those around them. Material excess is one thing, true wealth is quite another. And it doesn’t require any fancy theory to figure that out: true wealth is felt. The same goes for idealism: inexperienced wishful thinking without action is one thing, a life long commitment to a deeply held value grounded in experience is quite another.

When I grow up, I hope to be the kind of person who covers $3.50 for an 18 year old kid desperately trying to figure out who he is, and I hope I’ll be able to give him a little more than that.

- Sanya, July 2nd, 2020