> Realism is both a help and a hinderance, I believe. Many of the truly great things in this world came about because the person behind them didn't let reality get in their way.

Yes, but for every one of those, there are a skillion people who neglected realistic concerns and never got anywhere. And I also think that a lot of the "if I had stopped to think about it, I wouldn't have done it, but I did, and look at me now!" stories are idealized or exaggerated. It's the kind of thing where, in HINDSIGHT, taking on a particular task "must have been" crazy, but the reality is usually that, at the time, that person DID think it through and saw there was a chance.

Clearly you can tell from this response which side of this scale I'm on from where you are. It's pretty obvious from just about any conversation of ours that I'm one of those people that asks you that question -- have you really thought this through?

*shrug* It takes all kinds to make the world go around. It's a cliche, but it's very true here. We need realists, and we need idealists. Each is able to accomplish different things in the world, and we need both types of things to get done.

For one's *personal* development, definitely it's nice and sometimes useful to collaborate with other like-minded people. But the opposite type arguably has greater use. Realists help focus the energy of idealists, keep them grounded, and aimed in a productive direction. Idealists keep realists from getting too discouraged by real world constraints by inspiring them to break down barriers instead of letting those barriers hold them back.

I'm paradoxically not the best person to say -- one can be objective about anything except oneself -- but I see myself as more or less in the middle of this dichotomy, leaning on the realist side perhaps but not very firmly in that camp. I'm sure I'm right that you perceive me as a realist, but I think that's just because your perspective is from the idealist end of things. Very often I'm playing the opposite role with people more burdened by practicality than I am. I also seem to play that role with *myself* -- despite that I am overwhelmed by the prospect of actually doing all the work I want to do with RinkWorks, still I find myself forming new ideas, putting myself farther behind, yet spurring myself onward in spite of it all.

Enough of that tangential self-reflection there. Back to the subject of extremes tempering each other out. I know some big time idea people like yourself, only WAY more so. They get some great things done, but they're largely out of control and invest so much energy in things that should be obviously dead ends from the start. People that get all revved up about an idea...for about one day, and then it's something else. One idea in a hundred pans out. That's great if one idea pans out, but I surely there was something better to do with the prior 99 days than waste them like that.

You're not this extreme at all, but I'd definitely say that this situation is more of a hazard for you than the other, which is to think and consider and deliberate and research and meditate until those same 99 days have gone by before you decide to actually *do* something. Or, alternately, get so demoralized by how daunting the task is that you just never try.

Bottom line. I sympathize with your craving for other like-minded people -- it's a natural desire, there's nothing wrong with it, and it's likely that collaborating/consulting/communing with such people would be beneficial for you. But the other side of the coin is that you need those realists at least as much, however much more of a downer they are to bounce ideas off. :-)