Who is The Practical Idealist? Where did he come from?

I think I've wandered far enough in my blogging career to warrant a brief explanation about the choice of the name under which I publish this blog.

I call myself a practical idealist for two reasons:

1. I’m an idealist at heart (often the cause of many an angry moment for me)
2. I realise that I can’t go on forever trying to be true to my idealistic impulses in a less-than-ideal world, and so I compromise on those values at times.

Today, in my errant online wanderings, I came to know that the term “practical idealist” was originally used by Mahatma Gandhi. According to Wikipedia, it is “a philosophy which holds it to be an ethical imperative to implement ideals of virtue or good. It further holds it to be equally immoral to either refuse to make the compromises necessary to realise high ideals or to discard ideals in the name of expediency.” I wouldn’t have quite defined it in this manner, especially where it suggests discarding ideals in the name of expediency. You could say that not letting go of my ideals has often come in the way of my progress / success in life, but that’s the way I prefer it. I’d rather not be successful if success means compromising on your beliefs.

Of course, I'm not in the same league as the Mahatma, and have no illusions about it; I hold him in too high a pedestal to even compare him to me. It's just that he interpreted Practical Idealism as something, and I interpret it as something else.

For the record, my first exposure to the term “practical idealist” was in a book by Linda Goodman many, many years ago :-)

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