Consequently, "You should quit your lofty goals and revert to those more practical in nature." should've been said to a lot of people who didn't accomplish anything.
That's how selection bias works.
I think the nature of this debate is such that we'll always settle on the idea that "one ideology fits all" has never worked and will never work.
A few people doing great is important for the world, and so is a lot of people doing okay-to-good. Which one is more important can be your personal POV, but it's easy to see that neither is worth discarding.
I'm going to dig the biggest hole ever. Is a lofty goal, or at least a deep one.
You might sit and plan and talk to people and make a buisness plan involving dump trucks and stay at your day job planning for ever.
You might make viable plans for digging a large hole, but they don't quite fill the great pit of your vision.
Or you might pick digging as big a hole as possible as a direction, and do the next thing.
Dig with a space until you get tired then hire a digger and learn to drive it. End up with a big pile of mud to get rid of and find out you could sell it. Who knew selling mud could pay for more diggers. Hire good diggers and drivers because you've done it yourself and know how it's done. Do the next thing, do the next thing.
Until one day out have a really big hole. Not the biggest, but pretty big.
Indeed. The most difficult part of creating stuff is derailing and track-changing. Goals and dreams outside the context of reality and the world, are often pretty dumb and shallow compared to what you can do when you fail and re-evaluate.
Or are we suddenly supposed to not ever fail, and attempt only things that work the first time?
