Hope is not a simple wish for our future, but an innate human condition that splays us open from time to time to expose the safety deposit box where we keep our greatest dreams. Hope is a love song to possibility, if you will. It manifests itself, positively and negatively, in every aspect of society; religion, politics, art, and even used car sales. Don’t think for a minute that your hope for better financing on your pre-owned auto loan comes from a different place than your hope that our political climate will be less caustic and productive for the next eight years.
Hope often wanders aimlessly toward affectations it doesn’t deserve to inhabit, and wreaks havoc on our best judgement when we least expect it. Young, dashing actors color their thoughts with the hope that Brad Pitt will graciously cede his silver screen woes to the next generation of over-emotive heartthrob hunks. Aspiring politicians hope that despite dirty money, lobbying, and the heaving machinery of the political juggernaut, they might hold dear to their mouthwatering ideals and run headlong into office; their hope for positive change unscathed and unaffected by years of biased contributions to their half-baked cause.
I am not anti-hope, per se. Society would collapse without the possibility of clinging to the idea that somehow, someway things might just go your way somewhere down the line. It is born into us, this concept of hope. We need to feel that overwhelming stench of happiness when we close our eyes and think about the future; the fancy car, the beautiful wife, the absence of global warming, the song that will change the world, and the cure for cancer. The key to understanding why hope exists lies in the example of those who choose to defy it in favor of truth. When we no longer hope, but work soundly toward the realization of that which we had hoped for, as if the dream itself did not exist, hope suddenly becomes purposeful.
