This is something I've been thinking on-and-off for years. I'm an ideologically driven person. I want to do good, create a more equal and better world. However, reality -being as is- makes this...
This is something I've been thinking on-and-off for years. I'm an ideologically driven person. I want to do good, create a more equal and better world. However, reality -being as is- makes this very hard to accomplish. This sometimes causes much strife and suffering for me, as I am demoralized by lack of, slow pace of, or loss of progress.
Often in times like this, I turn to what other people think. One of the most frequent advices is about "accepting the world". In my experience, this advice almost exclusively came from people who I see as subscribing to conformism. They too are of course people, and they are bothered by things too, but they don't try to effect change.
This is why I've had an incredibly difficult time with this widespread advice. At times I even felt as if I'm pathologically attached to my drive to effect change. Especially at the start of this questioning, I felt like it. I felt as if I was a spiritual masochist. But in time I realized how much meaning and eudaimonic happiness it brings to me. I've also realized how much conformism and "hedonism as the only legitimate way of happiness" diffused into everything. Many people can't seem to fathom struggling for a cause as a fulfilling and happy process, because their interpretation of happiness is based exclusively on a pleasure-principle.
However, I still felt like this advice had some kernel of truth. Today, I realized what I think is a better way of interpreting it: accepting the world doesn't mean giving up on effecting any significant change in wider society or the world, it just means you're better off accepting your feelings.
Put another way, the conditions of the world creates these emotional responses in you. Whether you strike back or not, you should not deny yourself the opportunity to feel these responses. These often include feelings of anxiety, fear, loss, hurt, loneliness, sadness, etc. When handling ideological topics, these can be buried under anger. While anger is not unhealthy or bad, and can be motivating to do good, it can also sometimes deny a person the chance to feel the situation to the fullest. This is what I mean by accepting the world. It means accepting what it evokes in you.
I decided to share this, because I think these topics are mostly handled from a perspective I see as too one-sided and alien (to people like me). They are often filled with advice that tells driven people to stop being driven, telling them to give up what causes them pain and instead to focus on personal things, enjoy a movie, etc. Basically telling them to be someone different. But that's not what makes them happy! They just need to figure out how to healthily engage with what drives them. And I think this is an important part of it.
There is, of course, nothing wrong with taking some time off, or reducing or stopping certain habits, learning to take care of yourself. But every time I read the "acceptance" argument, I was left completely unsatisfied, and even irritated, because I was feeling as if people were telling me to become an orange. Not only was it impossible, they didn't even realize how much these things meant to me. They were basically telling me to give up, and that -for me- was unacceptable at an existential level. More to the point, my ideological drive is a core part of my personality that enables me to cope with living with depression and numerous physical illnesses. It's a key motivator that energizes me to do things, even though I often feel like not doing anything. Without this drive, I'm a much less happy person. So, it was an advice that wasn't even remotely suitable for me, because our personalities and motivations in life were extremely different.
So, if there are others like me here, I thought I should share my two cents on this, and hope that it helps someone see things a bit differently. If you've had experiences with these things too, you're welcome to share them :)