New thoughts a year and a day later. I'm actually somewhat surprised this topic never took off on a site like this, where ideals are traded back and forth unabashedly as if they weren't one of the greatest possessions we can ever call our own. On THINQon we deal, if not exclusively in ideals, than at least disproportionately. On love and art and beauty music politics and religion we talk of how things should be and how things really are and the in-between ways we wish we could achieve if not perfection. Where one post might start with an ideal we quickly get at the matter of things from all those different angles only multitude of contributors can achieve. What once seemed black and white and maybe a little bit gray is transformed into the entire scope of the color wheel by the merest of questions. And in your answer to that one you've thought of another. And now that ideal is so riddled with holes you wonder just how you came by such an extraordinary conviction on the matter to begin with. How silly!

I was talking to a friend who was about to set off on some sort of human rights extravaganza in a far off country. This was hardly the first such journey she'd taken and yet she was nervous. She asked me with almost helpless sincerity about what her life might look like in 15 years. Would she still live by the same ideals she did now? Would she still be saving the world one malnourished child at a time or would she give that all up for some comfortable desk job and happy little life with spinning class every Tuesday and Wednesday morning? How do we know what runs us tomorrow will be the same gasoline we need tomorrow?

That she was worried at all was proof enough for me she'd never give it up. And to this day she is the most altruistic person I've ever met. I can't see that changing ever.

But it has me thinking now that maybe I was wrong in my assessment from a year ago. Maybe ideals do exist and should exist and should be protected. Or else people like my friend could never exist and ideals would just sink and drown in a world of uncaring. This is not to say that ideals can't shift and change as we slip and slide through all that life hoses at us. Just look at the difference a year has made from that post to this?

But how can we protect our ideals? How do we know they exist and how can we make sure they never go away? All I can think to do is dissect them into their most natural forms, into simple statements of fact: Maybe my friend's is Help People or Do Good. And then be stubborn, don't let a conviction slide away because of a handful of thinqon responses, be faithful to yourself as mother, father, brother, and sister and protector to an ideal.

To not let our ideals fall away requires a degree of stubborn affirmation that only the bravest and the stupidest of us can afford.