Idealists: What does it mean to live/exist in your world everyday? | INFJ Forum

Idealists: What does it mean to live/exist in your world everyday?

Gaze

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Idealists: What does it mean to live/exist in your world everyday?
 
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As an idealist, my sense is that meaning is derived from the values assigned to the perceived contextual relationships between and among things. As such, living in the world everyday can mean anything you like.

That said, as an idealist, one of the things I came to understand earlier in life is that ideals are constructs of the mind - they do not exist in the material world, cannot be created there, and should not be pursued as if they did. They can inform values and serve as nexus points of reflection and contemplation that illuminate the contextual relationships between and among things. My experience is they tend to lead to disappointment when they are used to generate or define one's expectations, but I don't think that is any unique property of ideals as much as it is the nature of expectation itself.

Depending on one's attachment to specific ideals and the concept of ideals themselves, my sense is that ideals may serve to interfere with one's development as it concerns dispassionate awareness and acceptance - the process of, and choice to be present in one's moment.

Related to that, I think they may interfere with one's ability to Love others and oneself. As ideals are constructs of the mind, they can never be as complex, deep, and many-foiled as would be our own person or another. As such, no one, oneself included, can live up to (or down to, in truth) an ideal, or meet an ideal (because people already greatly exceed them).

Also, as constructs, ideals tend to define this and that. Such definition does not speak to the nature of Spirit having a human experience, which ultimately is integral and without boundary. Given this, ideals can only speak to the world of illusion, or samsara.

In my view anyway. :noidea:


cheers,
Ian
 
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It's both wonderful and terrible, it means to see all the potential the world has and at the same time to see all of it's flaws and weaknesses.
 
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I live in the real world, just don't look at it as if it's final, because a major part of its own characteristics is that it changes very quickly. It would be a delusion to assume that what you actually see around you at the moment is what is going to be tomorrow.

Now, some people mistakenly call that idealism.

Another part of it is that I care about people in my learning process. To me, people are part of the reality out there that is to be understood. When I understand something complicated, I also would like to know how to communicate it to others. When someone is incorrect, I not only want to tell them that the claim is false, but also to understand how they were thinking. It's not enough for me to just go: "you fail, gtfo". I want to know why they failed.

Again, some people interpret this as idealism, whereas I see it as quite practical.
 
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