The Realism Ratio

How realistic should you be?

Setting aside the fact that no one has a perfect grasp on the probabilities of the universe and so anyone’s personal view of “realistic” is naturally tempered by their own biases, I don’t even think it’s necessarily a benefit to be perfectly realistic all the time.

I think there’s absolutely such a thing as “having your head in the clouds,” and too much of that can hurt you. If you spend all your time wanting things that can’t happen, that’s a recipe for a lot of heartache and unfulfilled potential.

But the only things that are truly “realistic” are things that are already real. It’s realistic – neither optimistic nor pessimistic – for me to want a desk, because I already have one. Even the most mundane of ambitions, like “I want a new chair for this desk” might not manifest for a whole host of reasons, and even goals that seem ludicrous the first time you think of them (like “I should write a sci-fi RPG book and get it published by a gaming company that I love”) can turn out to actually happen at some point.

Your life becomes inoperable if you don’t spend most of it grounded on incremental, attainable goals. Lots of things about adult life just require daily maintenance “close to the action,” as it were.

But what is life without some dreams? We aren’t just calorie-processing machines, tunneling our way through our food like earthworms until the machinery breaks down. The very fact that we have the capacity to dream means we should, at least a little.

My oldest daughter, quite the artist, asked me to paint with her the other night. Painting isn’t one of my hobbies and I don’t find it more enjoyable than any particular other way to spend the time, but I readily agreed. Partially because I’ll almost always say yes to activity requests from my children, but also for another reason: my hands can paint, and my mind can think in pictures, and if I can do that, I should.

My body and my mind can make singing, dancing, painting, writing, dreaming. And so – at least on occasion – I should do all of those things. I should not spurn the gifts I have been given.

There will come a day when I cannot. When I can’t even dream anymore, let alone achieve the dreams I have. For that reason, I will let my head drift into the clouds, now and then.