Hi Kelley —
Found my way into some of the comments in your Virtual Pint and felt inclined to comment. First that article on Joshua Bell’s experience was fascinating. I was thinking that if they had tried it at the end of the day instead of at the beginning when people had more time — it would be different, but then there were the people standing in line for the lottery tickets with time to spare. What that says about our society is kind of frightening really. On the flip side, I found the lack of the public’s appreciation for him mitigated by the $40/hr he took in. Not so bad really. I wonder what percentage of the number of people who passed through appreciated him vs the percentage of the number of people in our general population who would appreciate him if placed in context for them. That is to ask is that percentage any different than how many people in our culture appreciate classical music? than how many people can see through their own crap and appreciate beauty for beauty’s sake? Reading that article did not make me feel hopeful.
Then one post led me to another and I read the discussions on hope, that lead me here and here. My first reaction when reading about the Goss book you mentioned was to vehemently disagree, but on reflection, I’ve about decided that I’m going to order a copy. (I already checked and my local library doesn’t have it) I really think the reason I (we) continue on is because of hope. Otherwise, at some point or another it just wouldn’t be worth it anymore.
While I do agree with what she says about acceptance and about life not turning out the way it ‘should’, I think that’s more a matter of accepting that life is not ‘fair,’ and not a matter of giving up our hopes, dreams, plans, and/or goals. The idea being acceptance rather than resistance; resistance gives a thing more power and takes the energy away from the solution. Maybe my issue is just that I would probably define hope differently than she does.
As for the question of what is hope? I think it what helps us conquer fear. I don’t believe we can expel fear from our lives. I think it will always be there, but what I can do is continue on despite the fear. Hope helps me to do that. I wouldn’t call it the opposite of fear, but I would say it’s the conqueror of fear (along with action). One could say that actions conquer fear, but how can one act without hope? Call it hope or faith (in myself, my loved ones, the universe), belief, vision, or even goals. It is what keeps the human race going isn’t it? I understand the argument that accepting failure would negate the fear of it, but I’m not buying it. Where does the motivation come from? It sounds like she’s saying that failure is a foregone conclusion. Well, ok, I accept that there will be (have to be) failures along the way, but not that the ultimate outcome will be failure. Maybe we have to change our concept of what that ultimate goal is because of the things we learn from our failures, but if the path has heart, so will the end and so will we. Maybe hope is part of having heart.
That doesn’t mean that I believe in false hope. I think I understand what you mean about not hoping for a cure for MS. I have faced the loss of hope of a cure for ovarian cancer a loved one facing a recurrence of that. There is a difference between facts and possibilities. It’s a hard line to draw. Doctors these days are reluctant to give out statistics and predictions for terminally ill patients. The reason for that is they have seen what the results of doing that are; patients who are told they have 2 months to live are more likely to die in two months than those who aren’t told that. I have seen this happen for myself. Holding out hope (hoping against hope) for a miracle could prevent one from making the most of what is in this moment. I’ve faced that choice and had to let my lover know that I faced it with her. Maybe if I’d faced it sooner, I could’ve supported her better. Or… maybe when she saw that I had given up hope, she deteriorated more rapidly than necessary. It’s something I still wonder about these 9 years later. I watched another close relative experience a very similar path with the same disease with a different attitude; one of denial. She was much older, yet lived longer. Who can say why, but it makes me wonder.
Belief/attitude/hope is a powerful force.
Can’t say I have any answers. This is something that’s definitely been weighing on my mind lately. Forced into thinking about it as I try to decide if I need to re-work my Plan B or come up with a Plan C…..
I realize this discussion is several months old now; I’d be interested to hear if you’re still in the same place with it.
I too loved that quote you had from M L King.
Then this quote from you is why I’ll read/watch anything you ever write:
“I don’t just want to show you things: I want to put them so far inside you that you have to dig them out with a spoon.”
Blah, blah, blah. Way too much out of me. Feel free to edit this if you put it up.
Best —
Jennifer
No editing necessary. I don’t think I can respond to every point right now, because there are baked potatoes in the oven and a beer in the fridge with my name on it (and I don’t mean that to be flip, just that I’ve been thinking about your comments a long time and could think about them longer, but then you would never have a response). I appreciate the conversation and that you’re willing to take so much time to continue it.
It’s been a wee while since you sent me this (my bad, very sorry) so I’m curious — did you get the Goss book? As much as I’ve talked about it here in the virtual pub, I’m pretty sure I haven’t yet found the right way to encapsulate her point (oh ho, maybe that’s why she wrote a whole book about it, laughing now). Or perhaps it’s that I find my understanding of “hope” is changing as I try to integrate her perspective into my view of things.
Am I in the same place with this? Hmm. Yes and no. I don’t feel hopeless, but I no longer rely so much on hope. I think that what you said above — Holding out hope (hoping against hope) for a miracle could prevent one from making the most of what is in this moment — is perhaps a good parsing of her point. If we rely on magical thinking, if we decide okay, I will get this thing or person or result I want if I don’t step on a crack, or if I don’t call her first, or if I pray hard enough, then maybe we miss the opportunity to just give a rebel yell and do the thing to the fullest in the moment when it needs to be done. And if we do the thing, and it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t mean we did it wrong. It doesn’t mean we were wrong to reach for it, to throw ourselves out there (to, as they say, dance like no one’s watching). It just means that it didn’t work out. And that’s how it goes sometimes. Right now, I think that’s what she means, and right now I can mostly be okay with that. Would I be okay if it were the death of a lover I was talking about, if it were Nicola’s death? Probably fucking not. So I’m not sure where I am.
Except that I know I’m in a doing place, a place of action without as much expectation as before. I do think that it’s possible to act without hope, by which perhaps I mean this expectation that things will work out the way I want them to. I still want them to work out, on some level I still hope they will — I just don’t necessarily pin my self-esteem or lifetime happiness or sense of worth on it the way I used to. And in some weird way this has freed me to, among other things, be braver about what I write and love my writing more. Why? I don’t know, it’s a mystery.
And since I’m in quote mode at the moment, here are a couple more:
We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are. ‘ Anais Nin
We are not what we know, but what we are willing to learn.
‘ Mary Catherine Bateson
I know this is in no way a complete answer to your very thoughtful comments. Thank you for them. And thank you also for your kind words about digging and spoons. It’s true, that’s what I want in almost every respect right now. Life’s short. Let’s just reach right in.
Can’t resist taking this up again. Good timing.
Acting without expectation of/dependence on the outcome; itâs much easier if one is enjoying the journey, the actions. Back to an old point, but one that I have to keep reminding myself of. Entirely too much of my life has been about the goal (never reached) and hating the actions I thought were required to get there. Now that Iâm finally making it more about taking actions I enjoy (actions that may ultimately get me to a goal, but – it turns out – are a part of the goal), itâs so much easier to remember to notice the moments as they are passing and revel in them. Finally enjoying the journey. Itâs tempting to berate myself for not embracing this simple method sooner, but itâs wiser and more enjoyable to just be grateful I finally got here. And now, when Iâm discouraged and tempted to give up on the the goal, Iâm beginning to remember to tell myself how much I enjoy most of the actions involved on this new path. Iâll take joy over hope any day.
Yes, a rebel yell. I like the sound of that.
To me, hope includes the idea of: is there a chance of this thing happening/manifesting? So if there is no chance of the outcome happening, why do it (unless you just really love the process)? If there is a decent chance, then there is hope.
I would prefer it if she (Goss) had said “accept failure as if accepting a gift.” That I can do – because each failure means I’m that much closer to success. Even if it takes 9,999 failures, each one puts me a little closer to my goal.
Anyway. I just hate it that she uses the word hope. I like that word. I need it. I donât need everything in life to turn out the way I want in order for my life to have meaning. My life has the meaning I give it. But I still think I do need to feel hope — especially when times are tough and I’m not enjoying the journey so much.
Talk about recursive — here I am commenting on this for the umpteenth time and almost two years later. Kind of freaky.
Well, it’s one of our ongoing discussions, no? I think it’s cool that we are still talking about it.
I understand what you’re saying. I like the word hope too. But I don’t think that substituting “failure” in that sentence says the same thing. Weirdly, I am coming to a place for myself where I have hope and no hope at the same time. I have the desire for something to happen, and the will to try to accomplish it, but I also can, much more than I used to, let myself stand square in the space of and it might not work out. Or even, there’s no way that I’ll get the result I want. And believing that, I can still try as hard as possible to get it.
It’s weird. I don’t really know how to explain it yet. But the results are pretty interesting.
One of the lessons I have learned in the last few months is that hope really can be a paralyzing thing. I never understood that before, but I can absolutely see how a particular kind of hope is just… false. Not because the thing can never happen, but because the “hope” is really a disguise for feeling powerless. The “hope” lets me give up and be passive and just pray for a miracle. And that kind of hope is not where I want to be anymore…
I don’t know. It’s a deep topic, that’s why we’re still kicking it around after all this time. I enjoy doing that. It’s nice to chart the journey.
I think it’s cool that we are still talking about it too, but I just wish that my comments reflected some growth in the area vs. a steadfast refusal to change my opinion. And maybe I’m getting there.
Yep, I know it’s not the same meaning to substitute failure there — that’s why I like it better.
I don’t think hope encourages me to sit around passively and pray for a miracle — I really don’t do that (and I have a hard time picturing you doing it either), but after thinking about this some, I realized something. And maybe this is what you are getting at. I’m realizing I do allow hope to keep me working (with head down and blinders on) on something that is not going to work or on something that should not be my priority. False hope, I suppose. And I wouldn’t have phrased it as being “a disguise for feeling powerless”, but rather as hope which prevents me from feeling powerless and out of options. The thing is, once I admit that powerlessness to myself, that’s when I can look for another solution.
Not sure if I’m making sense now, so I’ll stop there.