Practical Idealism versus Ideal Practice

I always hear: idealism and practicality are opposites! Well, I surely don't ever see it as a black-or-white question. Why, you may ask? Simply because they're but just two adjectives that can take other nouns, including each other! That's exactly why this piece is titled as it is.

What's it to be practical? To put something in practice. And, now, what renders idealism an unsuitable candidate? Nothing but unnecessary apprehensions that ...well, idealism cannot be put in practice! I simply ask, to inform myself, as to why idealism cannot be put in practice, and I still am yet to find a person who can give me a logical, straightforward answer. Now, what's it to be ideal? To follow certain ideals, of course! What ideals, due course of action decides.

Some ideals of old times might seem "impractical" as is, and what do you do then? Make them practical, of course, or how can you put them into practice! That's what I term Practical Idealism. In cases where there're no prescribed ideals, the practice, in a win-win situation, could be called Ideal Practice, by bringing practicality as close as possible to an “assumed ideal”. There is a subtle difference between the two, I dare to point, in that Ideal Practice is to be only sought after as the modus operandi when Practical Idealism is, presumably, not all feasible. (By "not all feasible", I refer to circumstantial constraints on its applicability but not on its practicability.) In other words, when ideal comes to meet practice, it's Practical Idealism, and when practice comes to meet the ideal, it's Ideal Practice.

How does this wordplay matter? Well, the wordplay doesn't matter, surely, but what matters is people's perception of both idealism and practicality. When one talks about practicality, one treats it as an antonym of idealism, like I wrote when I started. So, how does this antonymy matter? By looking at these terms as antonyms, practicality is put afar off idealism and not as nearer as it could be! In this light, idealism is cast off outright. If only one tries to bring practicality as much nearer to idealism as possible, one attains Ideal Practice, and in most cases, a bit of furthering shall bring oneself to Practical Idealism.

The bottom line? Practice Idealism, and you'd then learn that it's practicable. Look at them as opposites, and your practicality is never ideal!

“JAI – Just An Indian”

How to cleanse or better a system? (Part #0)

(Originally posted on another blog on May 13, 2006. The series shall continue here instead.)

This is going to be the start of a series of blogs. I shall try to be as concise and as detailed as I should be. And, of course, comments are welcome, please! I am not a society-specialist of any kind, by the way, and so what I write here is all what I believe and what I think I learnt by observation and practice; there’s probably not a single written treatise about any of the content in this series! Oh, well, the ‘system’ here, by large, refers to the Indian Society, but the content can possibly be extended to any other system in the universe – experiment at your own risk, but do experiment and experience, and I repeat, at your own risk!

If you have suggestions on what needs to go into this series, let me know, please. Write a comment, or send an e-mail, reply in your blog and let me know... do whatever, but please communicate! Oh, by the way, let us not stop at discussing problems – we shall seriously and sincerely look for real implementable solutions, yes, we will!

Rule of Thumb: The foremost rule in dealing with a system, I believe, is that you do exactly that: deal with it! In other words, one needs to interact with the system. In further refined terms, one needs to be a part of the system that you want to change! There is definitely no other way of doing it, at least if success is what one wants to achieve!

When I write “be a part”, I mean that one should be a part of the system so much that one actually runs a part of the system oneself – be an active participant and not a silent spectator! Observe how the system works: (i) notice what is considered normal, and make an unbiased judgement of what is supposed to be normal, (ii) see what could go wrong, and what actually did go wrong in the past, (iii) make a note of what logic, rationale, and justification run the system, and identify any ‘defaulters’ or detrimental factors among these factors or anything related to the system as such.

Rule of Thumb: (Now, really, how many ‘rules of thumb’ can be there? As many as necessary! ...Oh, yeah, this seems like another ‘rule of thumb’ already!) When one is a part of the system, one can change the whole system, yes! There is only one catch here – one ought to believe that one can indeed change the system – that’s the only way one can perform this feat! Also believe, equally importantly, that no one else might change the system, not even any body like the government! You are the only one that could bring about a change, you should believe!

That’s for now, folks!

“JAI – Just An Indian”
P.S: I shall not be as organized as you may expect, but we’ll discuss everything that needs to be discussed. Thus, I don’t know what might come next...