idealisticity

I guess I'm an idealist. You're supposed to get to a point in life where you see that being idealist doesn't work - and you move on to the next best thing. Perhaps I have yet to go there - or perhaps I've been there - and moved right through the circle again, but I still want to change the world, to make it a better place - help people to be happy in their worlds. Perhaps I'm a tad romantic - and maybe the rose coloured glasses I seem to be wearing need to be turned down a shade or two... But life is more than just about accepting the status quo. No?

It's easy to go about life just following the yellow brick road. But as a gay man - for me there was a point that I had to jump off that road. Life wasn't quite what it was made out to be. I was different from the rest of the crowd, even though I was walking the same road with them, to a point. But when I looked at my world from a different perspective, as a kind of outsider looking in - it was kind of like in the Matrix movies - you learn to see the code behind all of the things you once didn't ever question. And so I started to question things - why should I follow religious ideology when it really didn't seem to want to understand me? Do I really need to do the whole car, wife, house, dog, kid, holidays down the coast thing? Is society right with all the sexual taboos and is it's moral code really of benefit to the real people out there? Sometimes the answer was yes - or 'it works for me' but sometimes not. But just by looking at things with a more critical perspective it has made me think, how can I make this better? Can I help make the rest of the world look at the code and wonder if it can be improved upon too? Or am I seriously deluded?

I can see great potential in this world - and I think I can do great things to enable some of this - but sometimes it just seems too hard - where to begin? What to aim for specifically? But looking at the bigger picture, how long has it taken for us to take the environment seriously? Half the things that are starting to become common ideals now were in high school text books decades ago. I'm not exactly going to solve the problems of the world in the next 30 years, is there any point in trying? I'm not exactly read here by the millions that flock to Perez Hilton. And face it - there aren't a lot of people around who really are trying terribly hard to make a difference, so it's much easier to just fit in and watch the latest reality TV celebrity crap.

I'm a glass half full kinda guy though. I look for the positive. And by looking I guess I see it more readily than those who do not. It can drive people crazy, but I'm not about to change it. I can take a decent photograph, I can counsel the dying and occasionally heal the sick, I can organise incredibly intricate social events and can even string a few words together, but how am I going to seriously make a difference in the world? Should I use the force, or succumb to the hedonism of the dark side?