! The strength of ideals

Albert Schweitzer !!!

! Albert Schweitzer (Germany, 1875 Gabon, 1965)

A theologian, pacifist, doctor and musician who carried out a large part of his work in Africa. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952. !!!

Im convinced that the effort you have to make throughout life is maintaining the freshness of the thoughts and feelings you had during youth. This conviction has always been a source of good advice for me. Instinctively, its as if you stay alert, never becoming what is called a mature man. !The expression, mature, has always made me feel awful. It sounds to me like a synonym for impoverishment, despondency, and intellectual or moral greed. The normal spectacle a mature man offers us is one of reason, forged by disillusionment and resignation. We give shape to each other, abandoning the thoughts and convictions we loved in our youth one by one. We once believed in the power of truth but now weve stopped believing in it. We believed in men and in good: but not now. We zealously defended justice, but that zeal has faded. We had faith in kindness and tolerance. But where is that faith? Our ability to become enthusiastic about something has also disappeared. To be able to more easily avoid reefs and sail through storms, we have removed ballast, throwing overboard what we thought would hinder us; but they were our provisions, our reserve of water. Now we sail along more lightly, but hungry and starving.

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!When I was young, I would hear conversations between adults that filled me with sadness. They saw the idealism and enthusiasm of youth as precious goods which had to be unavoidably left behind. I was afraid that I would also one day look at my past with the same melancholy. And so I firmly proposed to myself to never submit to the need to become a reasonable man. I have attempted to guide my life by this vow which, initially, came out thus, as a teenage bluff. !Adults make efforts to have young people see that what they love and desire are no more than illusions. But I believe there is another way of helping youth with their inexperience. It implies encouraging them to strengthen and develop the very ideas which make them vibrate. The true mature man, the complete man, confirms that youthful idealism is a treasure that should never be abandoned. We all have moments when it seems that life can erode our enthusiasm and faith in goodness and truth. But nothing makes us sacrifice them. If the ideal is defeated when it is confronted by reality, it doesnt mean that this ideal is false but, rather, that it lacks strength, that it isnt pure enough or isnt firmly rooted in our hearts. The strength of an ideal can be incalculable. !Ideals are thoughts; while we keep them only at that level, their internal strength is inoperable, no matter how much hope accompanies them. Their strength is only operable the moment they become flesh on a human being that has worked to purify his feelings. !The maturity we have to pursue, the price required for our efforts, is to be increasingly sincere, cleaner, more peaceful, more dedicated, more indulgent, more understanding, wiser. Lets renounce whatever we need to achieve this. This is the fire which transforms the iron ore of our instinctive idealism in our youth to an unalterable, conscious awareness of steel which lasts throughout our lives. !Wisdom is knowing how to lucidly recognise the cause of our disenchantment and failures. Each event is the result of our inner force; if the force moving us is powerful enough, we may be successful. If it is weak, we will fail. Is my love helpless? This means that there is little love left in me. I dont have the strength to conquer all the falseness around me? This demonstrates that I myself am not sincere enough. The person who works to strengthen and purify himself inside will see how his idealism, instead of disappearing over the years, will become stronger and stronger, becoming a force with the power to transform. !The life lessons adults should be able to transmit to youths is not: reality will cast a shadow over your idealism, but, rather, your ideals have to become so profoundly rooted in you that nothing in this life can take them away! !

Albert Schweitzer. Strasbourg, Souvenirs, Ed. Istra February, 1924

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