Choose Hope

Despair ain't going anywhere…

This subject has come up several times in discussions among our commenting family here at the Freedom Scale, and I think it is worth further exploration…

There are better times, and there are worse times, both in an individual’s life and in history. Peacetime is generally better than wartime. Good leaders are better than bad. Prosperity is better than privation.

Still, at any one moment in history, we can find both reasons for hope and reasons for despair…so we might as well choose to focus on the reasons for hope.

Yeah, big revelation there, Chris…it’s called “optimism.” Duh.

Fair enough. It is worth remembering, however, that humans are evolutionarily wired to worry, so it isn’t always easy to just choose optimism. However, that is not my broader point here.

The revelation, in my view, is the fact that even in the midst of horrible times, or crazy times like ours, there are still always reasons for hope.

To put it another way…

There will always be, at any moment, war, suffering, people doing evil things, people doing stupid things, corrupt people abusing power, and so on and so on. It never ends.

It is good to be aware and to care. It is good to act where you can. But think about it for a moment: Nothing you do will change the overall fact that there will always be bad stuff.

You can do your best. You can help here and there. You might even be a person who manages to make a really big difference somehow. Great!

The problem, I think, is that we tend to make the bad stuff our emotional focus. Especially those of us who are aware, awake, and away from the Matrix.

Klaus Schwab is planning to put us in 15-minute cities and feed us bugs. Our psychotic overlords may actually be trying to cut the human population in half. The economy is living on borrowed time…literally.

These things are bad. Very bad. It makes sense that we would want to share the latest horror with like-minded friends and colleagues. And there are always fresh horrors to share, especially these days.

It is definitely good to keep each other informed…but if this is all we do, it ends up becoming an addiction to doom porn. And since reasons to be gloomy are never going to end, why focus on them and make yourself miserable?

Even if it is just something as prosaic as someone stealing your parking space, is that worth the emotional investment?

Why can’t humans be nicer? Why can’t humanity be better?

I don’t know. But whatever the reason, it ain’t changing any time soon. So it is better to bake that into your cake.

Assume the bad. Then set the bad aside—compartmentalize it, accept it—and focus on the good. Focus on the reasons for hope.

I do not want to downplay the value of keeping each other informed. That is hugely important! But, it seems to me that, within that context, there are still better and worse choices…

If one deems keeping each other informed to be one’s sole role, so be it…but you can still try not to let every fresh horror horrify you down to your emotional core. See it. Share it. But try not to let it suck away all your joy. And remember that there are, at this very same moment, also many reasons to hope.

If one wishes to go beyond just keeping each other informed, then I recommend looking for the areas of hope. Right now, there are people who are focusing on escaping the old cycles and building pathways to a better future. Since the horrors aren’t going anywhere, why not focus on some more hopeful possibilities?

Back in the late 80s, a friend loaned me a Sandman graphic novel to read. One part of that story stuck with me over the years (SPOILER ALERT):

The title character’s helmet is stolen by a demon, and he must play a game against the demon in order to get it back. In the game, one player transmogrifies into something, and the next player attempts to transmogrify into something greater—something that would defeat the previous thing. It is a game of cleverness and quick wit.

So, for example, you change into a great elephant to stomp me. I change into a mouse, whom the elephant fears. You change into a wind to blow away the little mouse, and I change into a willow that bends in the wind.

In the end, it looks like Sandman is going to lose. The demon has changed into…well, I don’t recall what it was now, but it was something that seemed unconquerable. Something that bathed the world in despair.

Then Sandman changes into hope and wins the game. Nothing can beat hope.

There’s a lesson in there, methinks.

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