Vision Is Hard Work
Oct. 14th, 2005 10:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cinema_babeI am a plodding realist.
In my eulogy (which hopefully is far in the future) I doubt if anyone will refer to me as a visionary or an inspiring leader of men.
When I think about great men of vision, I think of people like Mohandas Ghandi, Thomas Jefferson, Jesus of Nazareth or Martin Luther King. Jefferson, Ghandi and King were master politicians. Jesus and King could move crowds with their oratory. I admire the idealists but I believe that it is the realists that make the idealists ideal a reality. The world’s greatest architect isn’t much without a construction crew. I am the eternal assistant, toiling behind the scenes to turn the blueprints into an edifice. I like being the guy who runs the crew.
I am proud to be a plodding realist because without the planners, marchers, sitters and signers, the idealists would be nothing but madmen shouting into the wind.
I can respect an idealist but I respect the idealists more who, within their lofty ideas, have the wisdom and ability to be realistic about what it will take to bring them to fruition. As much as I can’t imagine Christianity without the St Paul, think of all that work done by those 70 disciples deployed by Jesus. Think of how many miles those 35 pairs of people logged while Saul of Tarsus was helping stone St Stephen. Imagine the Civil Rights Movement without all of those bodies linking arms and singing “We Shall Overcome” or the American Revolution without the majors and captains who marshaled the soldiers and executed George Washington’s vision. Yeah, imagine.
Idealists might have the lofty goals but a lofty goal without a good anchor will just float away like a helium balloon (Look at the experiments in utopian societies in the 19th century.) For me a yin and yang thing is key. To dream is fine; to execute is good; to dream and then execute the dream is heaven.
In my eulogy (which hopefully is far in the future) I doubt if anyone will refer to me as a visionary or an inspiring leader of men.
When I think about great men of vision, I think of people like Mohandas Ghandi, Thomas Jefferson, Jesus of Nazareth or Martin Luther King. Jefferson, Ghandi and King were master politicians. Jesus and King could move crowds with their oratory. I admire the idealists but I believe that it is the realists that make the idealists ideal a reality. The world’s greatest architect isn’t much without a construction crew. I am the eternal assistant, toiling behind the scenes to turn the blueprints into an edifice. I like being the guy who runs the crew.
I am proud to be a plodding realist because without the planners, marchers, sitters and signers, the idealists would be nothing but madmen shouting into the wind.
I can respect an idealist but I respect the idealists more who, within their lofty ideas, have the wisdom and ability to be realistic about what it will take to bring them to fruition. As much as I can’t imagine Christianity without the St Paul, think of all that work done by those 70 disciples deployed by Jesus. Think of how many miles those 35 pairs of people logged while Saul of Tarsus was helping stone St Stephen. Imagine the Civil Rights Movement without all of those bodies linking arms and singing “We Shall Overcome” or the American Revolution without the majors and captains who marshaled the soldiers and executed George Washington’s vision. Yeah, imagine.
Idealists might have the lofty goals but a lofty goal without a good anchor will just float away like a helium balloon (Look at the experiments in utopian societies in the 19th century.) For me a yin and yang thing is key. To dream is fine; to execute is good; to dream and then execute the dream is heaven.
