Telugu cinema/Bollywood taught me that a romantic person is the one who can woo others, be great at flirting, and create butterflies in people's stomachs. Do a Google search of the words romance or romantic, and the images that pop up are suggestive of it. You’d see images of intimate couples with warm tones.
Romanticism is different. It has nothing to do with the images you might have seen. Romanticism is a literary movement that focuses on heroic characters who exercise their free will and shape their destinies (or at least attempt to). A romantic person is thus not someone who can kiss well, but the one who can express their individualism and authenticity. Howard Roark, the protagonist of Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead, is a romantic for me. Arjun Reddy would also classify as one.
They could be terrible people to live with. Because by definition of being romantic, they hold a subjective idealized view of reality—the view which we may not share. They have a view of how the world should be and live according to that world view, despite the consequences.
When I read Fountainhead, I questioned Howard Roark a lot. I rewrote a few conversations in my notes to understand the themes better:
“I will only build a building that I want.”
“But your clients have to live in the buildings you build. Their expectations should be met, no matter how stupid they are.”
“They can go for other architects. I’m not going to build such buildings.”
“But you have to make a living.”
“Not that way.”
“You’d die poor.”
“I’d rather die poor than build meaningless buildings.”Howard Roark, an architect, had an idealized view of how work-life should be. That one should work only for things they are passionate about. He wouldn’t design buildings just for the sake of money, even if he was poor. He has to be emotional about his work. That is another trait of these romantic people—emotion. It cannot be a cold 9-5 job.
Many of us share similar idealized views of work-life. We wish for it. I wish for a work-life that doesn’t care about credentials. I believe work opportunities should be based on what you can get to the table—skills, knowledge, network, etc.—things useful to the work at hand. This is my idealized view of reality. I got attracted to Howard Roark because he held this idealized view of anti-credentialism as well. He was a dropout. He believed he could be a great architect without the stamp of a university. He believed his work—his buildings—would speak for him. But reality doesn’t give two hoots about my idealized view of it. It often values credentials (degrees) more than skills. It values many other silly things, and I do benefit from it at times. We rarely live up to the idealized views of reality that we formed in our heads. This forms cravings—romantic cravings.
Romantic heroes fulfill these cravings in us. They give us some hope and inspire us to be a little romantic in our lives. We would end up nihilistic otherwise.
Ship yourselves to 1920s India to understand why this is so. There was no practical chance of the British leaving India. Many freedom fighters didn’t even ask for complete independence, for that matter. The Purna Swaraj declaration was made in 1930. It was the romantics—Bhagat Singh, Gandhi, Nehru, Subash Chandra Bose, etc.—who pushed the needle forward. They had an idealized view of the reality of political life. These idealized views often weren’t in agreement. But they were bona fide romantics who strived to realize their idealized views.
Of course, even Mao, Stalin, and Osama bin Laden were romantics who pursued their own idealized view of reality. They ended up killing many. You can see that this is not a defense of romantics. Romantics are not reasonable. An idealized view of reality could be far from reality. For this reason, romantics could also be fanatics.
Or hopeless romantics, pursuing an idealized view of love far removed from reality. The view that contains concepts like Soulmates, Love at first sight, unconditional love…
Or simply impractical. Howard Roark could have ended up as a stone worker and he wouldn’t have been a character worthy to be written about then. There is survival bias in romantics. We don’t know about romantics who died poor.
While Ayn Rand showed an extreme romantic character in the form of Howard Roark, she showed an extreme pragmatic character in the form of Peter Keating. He has a better sense of what reality is and plays along. If it pays to say that a dog is a donkey, he would even ride it. For most of the novel, he is the one with material success.
Instead of canceling Keating, I want to learn something from him. I can empathize with him. Life removed many romantic notions in me just as it removed them in Keating.
Also, there is an issue of the main character syndrome. If you get too inspired by your romantic heroes, you'd end up thinking that you can make decisions like them. But are you there yet? Are you as talented as your romantic hero? Howard Roark could pull it off eventually as a successful architect without any degree or pedigree. Can you do the same? This question is not to discourage but to reflect on reality and the survival bias of the romantic heroes we get inspired from.
That brings me to the title of this essay—Pragmatic Romanticism. Can we be someone between Roark and Keating? I think we can. All real-life romantics I get inspired from made pragmatic choices in some other domains of life.
My favorite romantic is Verghese Kurien. The milk revolution in India is a product of his romantic view of milk economics, of his romantic spirit. If you were his parent, you would have chided him for his career choices. He left a government job to join a small cooperative. No, it was not a startup, but a cooperative. He wouldn’t have shares that would make him a wealthy man. His work was his romantic endeavor. But, if you read his autobiography, you’ll see the pragmatic choices he made.
Who are the romantics you look up to? I like to read them up.
I love this article because I know the story behind it :)
I was somewhere between Howard Roark and Peter Keating a few years ago. Life happened and I have moved more towards Howard Roark. Why? Maybe where we stand on the Pragmatic Romanticism spectrum is not merely an individual choice but a response to the world around us. When Jallianwala Bagh incident happened, it sparked emotion and action in the lives of Indians who found meaning in idealism. Perhaps we live in a world that demands more idealism than pragmatism. I would never urge anyone to become an idealist because it is indeed a hard life. I think the moment that shift occurs is a deeply personal realisation which can not easily be rationalised.
Another way to think about it is that pragmatism and romanticism are not orthogonal to each other but one demands the other. When Howard Roark says that he won't build a building for others, it's authenticity without a purpose (i didn't read the book). But if he wants to build a home for a family with children, he will not build a house with glass doors and sharp edges because it is not a home suitable for children. What I mean is that idealism or the way of the heart demands us to develop our minds to achieve what our heart desires. I am learning that they complement each other when they are aligned towards worthwhile goals.
I also think that a better way to think about idealism is to not just think about biographies which definitely have survivorship bias but to think of mythology such as the Mahabharata. It is one story where there is a lot of nuance in heroes. You have bhishma and dhrona who fought for the Kauravas out of loyalty. They may have lost in the war but they command the awe and respect of the victors who falicitate them as Gurus. I think the concept of rebirth in Hindu Mythology is pivotal for this reason. When you believe in survivorship bias, you try to survive. The Hindu dharma believes in rebirth so there is no survivorship bias which spurs individuals to be more idealistic.
For this reason, i have come to believe that India is, perhaps, more on the idealistic side than other countries. And, so, i have also learned to embrace it :)