I'm probably more "idealistic" than I have ever been; it's just that I no longer have the silly "Let's just do this one simple thing" attitude. I've just found that getting places is always a lot more difficult than we think. Usually, it's people, and all their messy personal issues, that gum up the works.

The good news is, is that I am actually accomplishing more than I did, when I was younger. I'm devoting less energy, and it is often more frustrating, but shit gets done. A big reason, is that I understand myself, and the people around me, a lot better than I used to. They are no longer "NPCs" in my Game of Life.

As to the article, I seriously feel for the author, but I am not exactly in their shoes. I don't have anything against them, but their cause is not my cause. I don't have a dog in this race. I have nothing at all against trans folks. Many of my friends are varying types of LGBTQI+ folks. If I'm not going to bed with them, then who they love, and what they do, when I'm not around, isn't my concern. I'd usually like them to be happy, and support their choices, as long as they don't interfere with my life. I'm even willing to go out of my way, in some cases, to support them (that's what friends do).

The one thing that is almost guaranteed to make our cause to go floop, is insisting that everyone else is either with us, or against us. This is especially annoying, when our cause is important to only a small minority of stakeholders.

For some reason, almost everyone in our life ends up in the "against" column, and many of them started as people that actually supported us, but weren't willing to go much farther than that. So now, they are actively working against us, as we declared them to be "enemy combatants." The "woke" stuff caused exactly this reaction. It's not just left-leaning stuff, either. Activists of every stripe, do the same thing, and then act all puzzled, as to why everyone seems to be against them.

As Dr. Phil might say, "So...how's that working out for you?"