I often find myself baulking when someone tells me, “be realistic”, especially at this time of the year when taking stock of what’s been accomplished—or not—in the past twelve months and looking forward to the potentials of the coming year. What are people really trying to say when they admonish us to be more realistic?
Over Xmas I was reading an article in The Economist‘s current holiday double issue (on the impoverishment of the modern view of progress) in which the American philosopher Susan Neiman was quoted. It reminded me of the interview with her that appeared last year in EnlightenNext magazine, where her insights helped shed light for me on this conundrum. Neiman, who is the author of the book Moral Clarity, writes about “grown-up idealism.” By that she means, we have to both see things as they are and strive to create a better world, a world that lives up to our ideals. Rather than resign ourselves to the fact that “the way things are is the way they have to be”—in other words, to diminish our expectations about life—she insists that we human beings have made moral progress and that there is, and always will be, more work to be done.
It’s a view that gets to the heart of everything we’re endeavouring to do here at EnlightenNext. Indeed, going from wishful thinking to rolling up our sleeves and engaging with change is what drives our many various activities. And we’ve got a lot of them—many new and exciting programmes and events—planned for the New Year. Click here for some of the highlights on our events schedule.
So rather than being merely ‘realistic’ about the coming year, I’m suggesting we embrace our idealism, realistically, through coming together and engaging with each other for a higher purpose. With so many events to choose from, I hope you will be inspired to join us frequently, either here at the EnlightenNext UK Centre in London, or via conference calls and other virtual interactions. As Andrew Cohen so often reminds us, it is up to us to create the future.
If someone had told me ten years ago that my worldview was based upon a lack of consciousness and detached from reality I would have been offended. I now know that many still hold the view that I am ‘idealistic’; but my consciousness has increased in those ten years and I now understand that any persons reality is directly related to their consciousness, in my world there is less right and wrong and more acceptance of what is dependent upon the consciousness applied.
One of the ‘idealistic’ observations I hold to is that the exponential growth of consciousness now being experienced can and will be beneficial for people and planet. The only limiting factor that I have observed is when I become detached from what is really going on; I am now more aware that these occasions present a simple opportunity for me to deepen my own consciousness. Is this too idealistic?
Fascinating comment.
So often being so-called ‘realistic’ actually merely boils down to being materialistic and denying there are any deeper dimensions to reality such as the reality of consciousness. From this culturally prevalent perspective any mention of development of consciousness looks too idealistic, and ‘detached from reality’. I passionately feel that the deepest and most human drive to create and become more conscious is idealistic by its very nature. And to endeavour to align with that current is a realistic idealism in my book.