If you’re fucking going to do something — might as well do it well

-and if you’re going to bother doing something that someone else has already done — might as well do it differently, and BETTER

-and differently — as in more idiosyncratically — is better (from your point of view, obviously)

 

And then of course the more intrinsically INDIVIDUAL (and defined in terms of “originality”) a given thing is — the more absurd and antithetical it is to then do it in a, well, common, unoriginal, inauthentic, way

(and even the exception — in which inauthentic is actually authentic to you — though more defensible — is still a stupid perversion of the original point)

 

This to me is the meaning of idealism,

It’s not complicated — it’s the BRINGING ABOUT of one’s ideal

 

Ideals are not always ideal — for ideals are costly. You may want expediency, you may prefer good enough — and save your energy for something else

 

But sometimes ideal is the whole point, it’s literally the only purpose of given activity

Again — art, writing, are emblematic of it

But so is any activity categorised as “doing one’s own thing” — for again — the very definition stresses individuality over consensus or followership

 

And then, of course, one’s own life, is yet another emblematic case

If you don’t live fiercely individualistically — then what’s even the point?

Or at least — can you even say that you are living?

Something is existing,

A part of the collective is existing

But nothing individuates itself

It’s not “you”, there is no “you”, it’s just it

Or what it really is, it is you — just broken — so that maybe but a shred is individualistic — and the rest is but a hollow echo of the mindless mass

 

And this again, is the meaning of idealism,

To be you is to individuate, is to will your own vision

That vision is the ideal, because it is your ideal, because it is yours

It is therefore idealism

To be truly oneself — is idealism

To live uncompromisingly as you — is idealism

 

…but this takes us back again to the original meaning of idealism:

the pursuit of the highest standards and the belief in the highest principles

You wouldn’t want anything less for yourself,

and to pretend you want less than the best — is to betray yourself,

so as to not betray yourself, but instead honour yourself — you choose nothing but the best

and thus exercise this capacity of discrimination,

discriminating against anything less than the ideal

it can be fiercely individualistic and subjective,

but it might as well be quite general

there’s the subjective and there’s the objective and both can be rational

and the fruit of this rational choice is the ideal

and you grasp for that ideal,

and become an idealist