What is Most Hopeful
Hope
Noun
1.
A feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.
Synonyms: hopefulness, optimism, expectation, expectancy;
2.
Archaic
A feeling of trust.
Verb: hope; 3rd person present: hopes; past tense: hoped; past participle: hoped; gerund or present participle: hoping
1.
Want something to happen or be the case.
So it’s not the best place to start. I guess it’s just ironic happenstance that I am feeling kinda down on the week we are writing on hope. I am determined to stay on topic, and I am reminded of that Emmerson quote “When it’s darkest, men see the stars”. Not that I am in any way in my darkest days, they are pretty darn cloudy though, let me tell you. Where do I find hope then in the times when the sun won’t shine? Sometimes I look to kindness in others, sometimes I look to babies because they are the epitome of hope, and sometimes I look to the gutter.
People show an extraordinary gamut of emotion at any given moment in their daily lives. If you watch people closely they will sometimes display the most haphazard emotional reactions in the course of just a few minutes, a complete maelstrom of intent. To be honest, most of the time I am not impressed by the interaction with the average human, rarely am I really greeted with the kind of kindness I espouse. To be fair, I don’t think people are ill intentioned innately, I do think that they are very often too caught up in their own goings on and emotional upheavals to really see the people around them. Sometimes with really good reason, and sometimes because they were never exposed to empathy and have no internal correlation to what it’s like to think of the other, no matter who they are.Most often I feel I am exposed to this in service industry applications, a circumstance that I am particularly sensitive to. I think people have very particular thoughts about those that serve them, thoughts that often discount the server’s life, goals, past, and intentions. It is folly, and it drives me batty. So what gives me hope about cranky people? I guess it’s the way that I see little glimmers of understanding and mercy in people too. People can be kind, and even if it’s not the majority of the time, the fact that it can happen even at the darkest of times gives me enough hope to believe in the power of humanity.
Hope does not just spring forth from humanity, and I find that babies of any sort are one of the most beautiful and assertive ways that Mother Nature proclaims her victory against despair and all that which is forlorn. There is something about that newness of existence, that proclamation that the future doesn’t have to be as fucked as the past, that this fresh piece of flesh has the potential to make things better, make things different, make things right, without even knowing it. It’s helpless without care and nurturing, it needs love and attention to grow, as do many adults. Even in the shittiest of circumstances, most mommas will ensure their babies will thrive. There is something powerful about the unknown future of the spawn of today, how will they react to the perils of the world we have left them? If our species has taught us anything it has shown us that we will prevail even in the most gruesome of circumstance. I am curious about the babies of today and what the future will hold, when I look at them I am indeed hopeful, if also a little worried and wary of the path they tread.
Which brings me to the gutter. What is it about looking at our most blighted hours that makes me look up to the stars? I think it brings me back to something my dad used to always say, “Never look at people who have it better off than you, always look towards those who have it worse off”. Though I know he brought it up when I was moaning about wanting a new Sega game, or being mopey about having my braces tightened, it has stuck with me throughout all of the years and made me very earnestly appreciative of the life I have before me. Truly the chasm of dichotomy between the haves and the have nots has stretched ever wider in my later years and this adage still holds steadfast. I know it is part and parcel of keeping people in line and keeping that one percent above the rest, I am not dumb. I am also just not too concerned, perhaps because my reality allows me the luxury of not being overly preoccupied with overthrowing the status quo. I am confident I am doing my piece to make the world better and in the meantime don’t get caught up in worrying, because I don’t think it’ll do any good. I have come up with a saying of my own: if you can change something, stop worrying and make efforts to change it and if you can’t change it then why waste the energy worrying about it. It’s a kind of content call to action; I have come to peace with the dichotomies that surround me.
Sometimes hope is found in the most unexpected places, especially when you aren’t looking for it. I am for the most part, a positive person, thoughtful and kind, so hope is never too far off. I must say that I am also glad to be away from it also, because it is then that the stars shine the brightest. I know I will always be a beacon, until I die, there are few ways of fighting ones fate, not like I would want to anyway. I hope I am always able to bring light to those around me, even in my darkest days. The light you shine, shines back brighter.
Until next time my kittens, you know what to do,
Expect great things!
