The Modern Romantic

To commit to an ideal is a dangerous and wonderful thing. Dangerous, because one might spend all of one's life pursuing but never finding it; wonderful, because the mere promise of the ideal gives the wishful the knowledge of beauty.

I have always had a romantic vision of Cape Cod. Two summers ago I went there for the first time with a friend. I tasted the clams overboiled in sandy water, saw the rickety ghettos along Route 6 and came upon miles of coarse, deserted dunes with harsh twilight sandstorms. It was not my idealization of the Cape. It should have been a place of carefree beauty, of deck shoes and seagulls, of dinghies and pale yellow beach houses.

We spent the whole day looking for this Cape Cod, but couldn't find it anywhere. I saw it only on our way back, as we stopped alongside the road for a break. It was on the seashore off the roadside, at twilight. The beach was a dark brushed gold, separated from the dune by tufts of tall, wild green reeds. The beach had a delicate bulge like a person's belly, which sunk into a gently rippled, calm blue ocean The ocean was glazed with pink from the clouds.

Near the water, looking away onto the ocean, stood one figure, alone. She wore a bright white sweatshirt and olive shorts, and a baseball cap that made her look like a little boy. She had her hands in her pocket, meditatively. A noblelooking golden retriever lay on the sand beside her with its back straightened and its head perked up, staring into the ocean like its owner. This is the Cape Cod I have always remembered; it was serene and sublime. There is a feeling about the place that anticipates seclusion with a comfortable other.

I took a picture of this scene, and that photograph is my vision of the Cape. The entire day of searching was worth my photograph. I had found an ideal.

As you read this, I am in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, looking for another ideal. I picture ivory sand and a red and white yacht, the sound of tennis balls being hit, men in broadrimmed hats and white linen suits and the sweet tones of a gentrified, articulate southern accent.

We sometimes need to take a break from the events that surround us. We need to step back, recalibrate our guides, find, capture and internalize our ideals. Living in the true state of the world and always hoping for an idealized one is an action that forms our compass, our motor and our destination. Unfortunately, while ideals are our greatest sources of happiness, they are also our greatest causes of sadness.

There is nothing new about this bit of pop philosophy for the masses. In striking a balance between what we want and what we can get, the ownership of ideals and a romantic vision is a sweet, intoxicating syrup that alternately sustains hope and steals it away. Few strike well the balance between foolish bliss and defeatism, between the tragic romantic and the resigned. Most of us swing back and forth between the two across different issues and different times.

Tragic romantics let ideals dissipate their lives. The realm of the possible for them is at once infinite and unachieveable. Always waiting for perfection to arrive or always working adamantly and vainly for it, their expectations of life are never tempered by concession to reality. Tragic romantics are a paradox: they are eternally blissful in themselves and eternally tortured by the world.

The resigned, those people without ideals, have given up hope. They settle for less than they ought to because they don't think they are albe to achieve more. Idealless people give up because, to their minds, there is nothing left to affect, nothing more to deserve. There is no compass, no motor, no destination other than the starting point.

Somewhere in the balance between the romantic and the resigned is a state where expectation is inspired by ideal, but approaches it only in small steps.

Finding, understanding, and internalizing ideals is an infinitely rewarding experience. No other process better defines the people we are and want to be.

Patrick S. Chung's column appears on alternate Saturdays.