Also, a line from the movie Ben Hur came to mind...
“Balthasar is a good man. But, until all men are like him, we must keep our wits keen, and our swords bright.”
An eye on the prize does not make us blind to reality.
Yet in every case, not simply a few, rather every case, does reality truly blind us or bind us, or does reality instead make us want the prize, yet obtaining the prize is worthless? Certainly would depend on what the prize being sought happened to be. If this is history repeating itself, and mankind has done all of this before, and did not attain the prize before, one has to wonder if mankind’s destiny is to never attain the prize, but rather instead to seek it and always fail. Seeking the unattainable or finally capturing the prize? Welcoming myself to the Twilight Zone.