The Science of Hope

My Pen Mates,

I'd like to title this: Hope In A Time Of Despair, but that would have been too depressing. This is just a middle-aged man's take on the nature of a well worn crutch that's universal yet unreal. To me, it's like a warning on global warming; sounding the bell to get attention then using persuasion to hold it. Why can't we all just accept that the earth is a living, breathing organism in the grand scheme of the universe? As a cell, it's metabolic cycle is probably once every fifteen or fifty thousand (human) years. We're witnessing that cycle now because we are more advanced in observing it, and technology is now present to monitor minute changes. But is there really something we can do to alter the course of the cycle? That's what Al Gore HOPES for.

Hope to me is a very transient thing. It's a vehicle I hop on when convenient and for expediency; it is a distraction from current hardship until my wheel of fortune comes around and gets me on top again; it's a sanctuary where I can block all the negative influences in my environment until it's time to emerge again. It buys me time, lets me regain my composure, and serves as a reliable but temporary shield against my pain, my challenges, my anxieties, and sometimes my self-inflicted wounds.

And where there is no hope? I manufacture it. It becomes my faith and religion. In life, it's akin to staring at one of those 3D posters; a series of repetitive, overlapping, juxtaposed images, seemingly uniform in its ordinariness. Looking at it for an extended period creates an awareness of another object that stands out from the flat field. It's a brain manufactured illusion that engages the senses at another level until you blink it off to see the two dimensional reality once more. The simple images that you stare at are the fragments and artifacts of your life. They are the reality as they exist based on how you have accumulated them over the course of your existence. They are uniform because they are only one of three things: they are either of the earth (in the natural world), things you have made, and things that human interaction has brought upon you. Every human experience falls within the three categories and this is what we see when we seek hope. But hope only emerges when we look. These three elements permeate our lives every moment of each day whether we pay attention or not. When we hit a lull because of inactivity, idleness, sickness, isolation, or willful wishful thinking, that's when we get an opportunity to look at the canvass. That's when we learn to examine it and discover that there indeed is something that's sticking out that's more real than what's in front of our faces. That's hope furtively inviting us to covet something beyond what is; to pursue a higher meaning; to allow in our lives the possibility of something bigger than the sum of the parts.

We do need hope for these reasons. I believe it's healthy and an integral part of a sane existence. It seems primordial in the neural network, such that both the prince and the pauper have equal shares. What hope teaches us in patience, in drive, in perseverance, in a positive outlook in life equates to the nocturnal cycle of human existence. There exists something between on and off; that the dimming of the sunset and the brightening of the sunrise is necessary to soften the transition between midday and midnight. Without hope, it's hard to survive the extremes. And yet it's not real, it's not static, it never lingers, and it's only visited when the heart is hollow, when the mind is numb, or when the spirit is desperate (prayer follows hope?). I feel sad to know this, but I feel happy to have defined it.

So I guess the sun is rising on my day....

Mon