The Ideal Self

No one can truly practice what they preach. What one preaches is ideal, is well thought out, is romantic and poetic, but what one does, is spontaneous and partial, is a flawed and incomplete manifestation of the ideal. What one preaches is not who he is, but the best of who he is. It is what each man strives for and wishes to become. Our ideals are goal posts, and must always— can only be — on a higher platform than their physical counterpart. We must aim for the stars, so that if our escape velocity falls short, that we might at least nestle in the clouds.

No thought can be translated to its physical equivalent without some loss of detail and aim, without a loss of the luster it had when it was suckling on the sweet glucose of the cerebral sugar well. The mind is a catalyst for thoughts; must house them and pamper them so that there be some desire to make them real. The thought is always sweeter than reality, and must needs be this way, for had the thought been barren and horrid, the being would not be incented to act, but would rather remain indolent. The thought will always be a better place than the present, or else we would be eternally complacent. So forgive the man who does not practice what he preaches, for that is by law impossible, but credit and praise him for that whom he aims to be.