“Forgiveness is finally giving up hope for a better past.” When I first heard this adage, the absurdity of linking hope and the past froze my brain for a moment, then I laughed with the pleasure that comes when surprised by something that feels true.
However, I suspect that the motto “Liberation is finally giving up hope for a better future” would generally be received as cynical and nihilistic, rather than as clever wisdom dropping. And yet.
I myself experience hope and despair more as conjoined twins than as opposites — the endless invocation of the necessity to maintain hope engenders a seeping sense of despair in me. Hope becomes yet another task, something that needs to be tended to, kept alive. Surely this is a distraction from the matter at hand (whatever that may be), which need only be addressed. Or not addressed. Perhaps simply witnessed, acknowledged, experienced. But not hoped for — or despaired about. There’s no succor to be had in either of those, not for me. Hopelessness is just as much of a distraction, just as counterfactual and fantasy-based, as hope.
I get it that giving up hope may sound terrifying, perverse, and even immoral to many people. As if it would lead directly to a rash of suicide, gluttony, and mayhem. I think not. The actual opposite of hope may be presence, with hope being just another way of absenting ourselves. Wish, desire, expectation, longing — these are the synonyms of hope. Feathery things, indeed. Insubstantial. Not much to rely on in a pinch.
When I’m hooked into despair about, say, the Sixth Great Extinction (which is one way of talking about the destruction of beauty and diversity on this planet), I look to deep time for solace, to the factoid that 99.9% of all the species that have lived here are now extinct. I take comfort in knowing that patterning beauty finds its way. When off-kilter, my balance is found not in what I hope will be, but in what is, what has always been. Once stabilized, I can respond to the matter at hand, possibly in a way that is helpful and skillful. I can’t base what I do on hope; I need more substance than that.
So, you wonder, what’s with the lovely infant pictures? Why are you posting them with this piece? I look at these photos of Viva, my friends’ newborn, and am filled with delight, with pleasure and joy. There is no whiff of hope in this experience — I am not brimming with hopes for Viva’s future, or for the future of the planet or society she will live in, or even for my friends’ wellbeing as they newly navigate the terrain of parenthood. I am simply filled with the joy of Viva-ness, of pomegranate and dahlia, of color and form. Of what is.
¡Vivá Viva!
