Pragmatic Idealism, without the Cynicism

I recently saw this awesome TEDx talk by Carnegie Mellon computer science professor, Dr. Luis von Ahn. This guy is amazing. So he invented (helped invent?) Captcha, that computer program that checks whether you are a real person when you try to send a message or buy tickets or post a comment (according to wikipedia, Captchas are "computer-generated tests that humans are routinely able to pass but that computers have not yet mastered"). So as he tells it, von Ahn learned how much time people around the world now spend typing in those captchas, and rather than be excited by the ubiquity of his invention, he thought to himself that it was a waste of time better spent on something more productive. So he invented "reCAPTCHA." Again from wiki: "In reCAPTCHA, the images of words displayed to the user come directly from old books that are being digitized; they are words that optical character recognition could not identify and are sent to people throughout the Web to be identified." Most recently, von Ahn tells us in this talk, he and one of his grad students invented a program called "Duolingo" that works to translate the web in the process of teaching people new languages. In short, I was blown away by this talk, and inspired.

Yesterday my husband and I were talking about how my idealism has evolved over the years, and I've become a little more pragmatic. He commented to me that the world needs all kinds of idealists, and I began to imagine this spectrum of idealism, ranging from lofty dreamers to pure pragmatists. (On my spectrum, I should add, there is no room for cynics.) I seem to be increasingly drawn to the pragmatists on this spectrum, and I think von Ahn is the perfect example of this incredible sweet spot between pragmatism and idealism (no cynicism). Rather that sit around trying to think up the biggest, most confounding problems on the planet - like so many of his fellow academics - he seems to identify a single problem, and think up a genius - and idealistic - solution to that problem. Serially, as entrepreneurs say. On repeat.

I think I am all too often surrounded by pure idealists, on the one hand, and cynics, on the other. Watching this talk gave me such an inspiring dose of pragmatic idealism. I also find this attractive in the emerging field of social entrepreneurs, who seem so different in spirit to the public interest lawyers I know much more personally. Why do lawyers so often seem beaten down and cynical, and these folks seem so much more grounded on the idealism-pragmatism spectrum? How can I incorporate more of these ideals into my life and work?