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the death of our passion; the death of idealism
When does it happen? When does the slow death of our childish idealism, of that passion we cling so tightly to, when does it fade into what we now possess–a mere glimmer of what it once was?
Anis Mojgani has a poem that stirred these questions within me:
I spent hours on that drawing of darkwing duck
stayed up past four just to get it right
I had school the next morning
but I needed it to be perfect
I don’t know if there’s anything I love that much anymore
I can remember a time when I would stay up late dreaming with friends, talking late into the evening or until the morning hours about the church, about the Kingdom, about changing the world… but it seems those days are long gone, and the time for dreaming is quickly pushed aside for the “pressing” tasks of the day, the details of tomorrow, the exhaustion of work.
Is this what happens to idealism? Our journey towards the realization of these dreams we’ve conjured up becomes so all-consuming that it drives away our time for new dreams and new conversations… are we really only created to pursue a limited number of dreams in our lifetime? If so, shouldn’t that make our one or two big dreams all the more special, all the more important to pursue?
How different would this world be if we didn’t allow our dreams to fade away, but pushed on no matter what and see them through to completion… or at least as far as we’re able to take them. Somehow I have a feeling that too many people give up on those dreams, their profound sense of idealism…
There have been many times I’ve come close to walking away from my dreams… I pray I never do.
9 Responses to “the death of our passion; the death of idealism”
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Creating a family has to be a huge part of the issue at hand if we’re being honest. Getting married instantly takes time and energy you once had and points it at another person living under your own roof. Throw a kid or two in the mix for good measure and YOUR day is gone.
All this assuming your living out the God centered ideals of cherishing your spouse and providing for your children.
Our once good dreams could, in the end, be the very thing that now destroys us if we persued them in the face of having a family.
So family = the death of dreams and idealism?
Why can’t family be God’s gift to help accomplish your dreams?
Darkwing Duck was awesome.
Erik, your comments make me sad. There is a glimmer of truth there, unfortunately. Your dreams do change when you get married and have kids. Sacrifice is a requirement. This is a reason why too many are deciding not to have kids – they don’t feel up to the sacrifice.
The other side of the story that I’ve discovered though, is that you recapture the wonder of life through your children. It can be really frustrating at times, but at other moments – like when they are watching fireworks for the first time – you get to experience everything for the second time. It’s pretty awesome.
I look at idealism as an idea or state of mind or end desire. I still hold fast to my idealism, I don’t think that’s even a choice for someone who believes in the promises of God.
My dreams are what I percieve my actions to be in which to bring that idealism to fruition.
As a younger person, my dreams didn’t include a family in the equation. All I know is that personaly, based on my own personal convictions as to how to best raise a family, if I were to chase down my top two dreams, my wife and kids would despise me and that would destroy any chance of me even attaining that dream because the person I’d want to be on the other end wouldn’t be there.
I love my wife and kids more than I ever imagined I would. The idealism remains, but the dreams of youth have long since past.
I have NO regrets coupled with new dreams
Interesting. I can’t really truly relate considering, first off, I don’t have any kids and second my dreams were the same as my wife’s entering into marriage. So, we’ve walked the road together knowing what we wanted to do/see happen with our lives.
Perhaps that’s something that couple should talk about in pre-marital counseling–something I’ve never really thought about–what are your dreams, and what dreams are you letting go of to get married/have a family, how will this marriage contribute to the life of those dreams or the death of those dreams… are you willing?
Interesting to think about…
I think that’s a great idea! It’s too bad more people don’t go through pre-marital counseling. I was against it when I got married but was sure glad I did it in the end.
Going back to the begining of this thread…
I think that two other factors for peoples loss of idealism is their eschatology of the world being destroyed and our insatiable desire for instant gratification.
I’ve happened upon many conversations where the prevailing thought is “why should there be any hope for the future when the future is doomed until heaven” If that’s the mindset, then heaven and only heaven is ideal and we should either off ourselves to get there now or mope around until we die of natural causes.
As far as instant gratification. I mean seriously… when was the last time you saw someone take a picture and wait till they got home to look at it? We all just love those little screens built into the back of the camera. Aaron, you just blogged about this a couple days ago “Lets do this already”. The way I see it is that nothing great happens in an instant, it takes time and hard work. If this is not realized, then the second we we try to bring about an ideal world and it doesn’t happen, then we throw our hands in the air and walk away from it.
Given the very nature of idealism and the probabillity of achieving it, it’s a wonder that any adult has it. That’s why I loved youth ministry, because I was working with students who still believed they could change the world…
Maybe this is a central issue we need to address in the church. Instead of taking all of the idealists’ and sending them off to their separate ministry place and time, we should be finding a way for them to minister to those who’ve lost it.
Sorry for the lengthy post, I’m not afforded much adult stimulation as a stay-at-home dad, so when I have the chance to engage I jump on it. Thanks for the community!
Good stuff Erik… I like the idea of gathering idealists to help others recover their sense of hope that anything’s possible. That could certainly change things in the church… could you imagine a church full of idealists and dreamers working hand in hand to create the change called forth by the Kingdom?
I think life jades us. Struggles and selfishness destroys us from the inside out. Then the environment we are in – the people we hang with and the things we do, factors in to how we “learn” to live.
Look at kids. You put two 5 year old kids in a room and within minutes, they are best friends. They don’t deal with the crap we all put on ourselves – they just live for the moment. We have forgotten how to do that – just live for what we are in now. We want more. Think we need more. Don’t get more, and then we can’t handle the rejection. We spend too much believing what we are told, that this/that will make us happy or this/that is what we really need to be accepted in this world.
An idea is a risk. And from risk comes the belief that you can succeed. We have become to cautious to take that risk – afraid of not being liked. Afraid of screwing up. Afraid of what will happen if we fail.
Fear of failure…SO TRUE! No one wants to be the loser.
It seems as if the list is quite lengthy in that which destroys idealism. This thread could go a while.
Aaron,
I DO imagine a church like this 
Side Note – staring me down at this moment hanging over my computer is a poster of John Lennon’s profile with with lyrics to Imagine.