Here's Hoping
Hope is something innate in the human psyche, something imbedded in the brain that allows us to see a spark of sunlight on a dreary day. For me it is something that doesn’t just keep me afloat through the maelstroms of life, but that gives me reasons to smile everyday. However childish or whimsical this is it is how I have been wired; hope is my fuel.
As I age I notice that thoughts, feelings, changes and decisions become more important and thus a little more frightening, yet my faith in the positive seems to hold strong. I have to ask myself now though, is there a point when the naiveté of hope becomes a hindrance?
The Greeks personified Hope as Elpis – a childlike being housed with all the evils of the world in Pandora’s box. Elpis was the only item to remain captive when the other evils were released, and was said to have been set free when mankind could not manage the other evils without it.
This begs the question: what on earth was hope – humanity’s antidote to despair – doing locked in a box with sorrow, toil and sickness? Is hope really a blessing, a mitigating factor in life or is it in truth an evil itself? If so, I fear hope to be the most treacherous of all plagues because it intoxicates us with faith and gives us the stamina to continue holding out for something that will never come. As Nietzsche simply explains: “In truth, it is the most evil of evils because it prolongs man's torment."
Hope when teamed with action and grounded expectation can be a strengthening factor. Without those factors, it can simply be the manifestation of unfounded desire – our mortal attempt to clumsily grasp at a Utopian objective.
So when does hope turn from expectant optimism to futile dreaming? When does it morph from faith in a valiant endeavor to impractical masochism?
When is it ok to give up? Something I have honestly never given thought to; I have never really considered the relinquishing of hope for a given thing to be an option in any circumstance, but there must be a point when it becomes acceptable, even necessary?
This is something I have yet to find an answer for, and until I reach that point of ultimatum I have a feeling I won't. I suppose hope doesn’t run out for me. I forge ahead, faithfully crusading in the name of optimism until I am vindicated… or until I am driven mad and tromp about life like a modern-day Don Quixote.
Here’s hoping for the former.
As I age I notice that thoughts, feelings, changes and decisions become more important and thus a little more frightening, yet my faith in the positive seems to hold strong. I have to ask myself now though, is there a point when the naiveté of hope becomes a hindrance?
The Greeks personified Hope as Elpis – a childlike being housed with all the evils of the world in Pandora’s box. Elpis was the only item to remain captive when the other evils were released, and was said to have been set free when mankind could not manage the other evils without it.
This begs the question: what on earth was hope – humanity’s antidote to despair – doing locked in a box with sorrow, toil and sickness? Is hope really a blessing, a mitigating factor in life or is it in truth an evil itself? If so, I fear hope to be the most treacherous of all plagues because it intoxicates us with faith and gives us the stamina to continue holding out for something that will never come. As Nietzsche simply explains: “In truth, it is the most evil of evils because it prolongs man's torment."
Hope when teamed with action and grounded expectation can be a strengthening factor. Without those factors, it can simply be the manifestation of unfounded desire – our mortal attempt to clumsily grasp at a Utopian objective.
So when does hope turn from expectant optimism to futile dreaming? When does it morph from faith in a valiant endeavor to impractical masochism?
When is it ok to give up? Something I have honestly never given thought to; I have never really considered the relinquishing of hope for a given thing to be an option in any circumstance, but there must be a point when it becomes acceptable, even necessary?
This is something I have yet to find an answer for, and until I reach that point of ultimatum I have a feeling I won't. I suppose hope doesn’t run out for me. I forge ahead, faithfully crusading in the name of optimism until I am vindicated… or until I am driven mad and tromp about life like a modern-day Don Quixote.
Here’s hoping for the former.
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