Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Ideals and Idols

Ideals are pesky things sent down to the world merely to trouble us. All you want to do is to simply do what you please. And then these things pop up and get in the way of your pleasure by asking you to bother about how your actions affect other people. I mean, come on, I have enough trouble bothering about how they affect me, so why should I worry about how they affect others?

If only I could be convinced that everyone around me were exactly like me, pursuing their own desires, then one could conveniently brush aside these irritants with the 'Oh! That is idealistic. Grow up, get more practical, don't stay immature.' Unfortunately, there are always the few who seem to be at least a shade more ideal than you and then...

There was this nice lady called Ayn Rand, who said it was not at all necessary. Pleasing myself was all there is to life. Of course, she got a huge fan following, including me, for, after all, the most intelligent and enlightened person in the world is the one who offers a justification to you to do exactly what you want to do.

It stands to reason that everyone does what makes them happy to do, so exactly why should I feel inferior because what makes me happy is drinking myself silly every night and what makes the other person happy is feeding and educating orphans? So, the other guy was the same as me, after all, so I could relax and enjoy myself my way.

You know, I could not do it for long. I mean, yeah, he probably was making himself happy in his way just as I was in mine, but did that make us equal? I mean, end of the day, are we not better or worse based on WHAT makes us happy and not based on WHETHER we make ourselves happy? If what makes us happy is irrelevant to judge people, then the sadist and the rapist will claim to be as good as me, since he is only pleasing himself HIS way like I am in mine, and where would I be then?

There I was, back again having to wrestle with this idea of ideals. I would be quite happy to dispense with them, as I said before, but, when I start feeling that I am lesser than the guys who live up to them, the zing sort of goes out of the alcohol if you know what I mean.

But do they? Maybe they only SEEM to do so. Yes! That must be it. They are no better than me, it is only that they are better at portraying themselves as better! THAT must be it. A comfortably warm sensation went through my being. It is as easy as that. Just assume that they are not as good as they seem and no burr itches at the back of your mind. The moment someone is set up as a idol, start doing an chemical assay of the feet to assess the presence of clay. If you WANT to find feet of clay, you WILL.

And as for those where clay eludes your most persistent search...Oh! They are gods or Saints. You just cannot expect a mere mortal to follow their footsteps!

4 comments:

  1. This post is yet another reminder, I still haven't managed to get through The Fountainhead..duh me! It is all about perception I say. Or one could simply be like the cat, close your eyes to the world.

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    1. Don't bother about Fountainhead. It is a self serving piece, if you view it my way.

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