I could look at the sunlight
And I feel no fear.
With a mountain of maybes
And some Icarus wings,
–Danny Elfman/The Little Things
The term realist is sometimes flung around like it’s an epithet.
I beg to differ. Pragmatism is a good thing.
There is a place for dreaming, but there is also a place for practicality. For the commonsensical.
One dictionary defines it like this:
adjective
dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations
What is wrong with that? I like things that are sensible. You can be sensible and whimsical at the same time, you know. Dream big, but you’ve got to realize that unless you take some practical and concrete steps and consider the consequences of them, those dreams won’t go anywhere outside your own head or may have unfortunate results.
Where’s the difference? Like pretty much everything, it’s often in balance.
Icarus and the Wright brothers shared the same dream of flight. It killed Icarus, but not Wilbur and Orville.
Sadly, Icarus forgot to be pragmatic and think about what he made his wings of, and where he flew with them once he took to the air. He was so caught up in the excitement of flying that he melted his pretty new wings right off and plummeted to his death.
Wright brothers. Same dream. They took it slower and lower, but still flew. Wilbur did die young, but of typhus. Orville died of a heart attack in his mid 70’s. They were more pragmatic than Icarus.
Probably because Icarus is a myth and the Wright brothers were real.
What?
Yeah. It’s true.
The Wright brothers were real.