SPECULATING ON HOPE

It is amazing how the strictures of the past infect our observations – causal thinking warped by hope. Hope is a diagnostic human trait and this simple cortex symptom seems to be a major factor in our inspection (or perhaps introspection) of our Universe.

Hope implies a change from the present condition to a future better one. The enslaved hopes for freedom; the weary man for rest; the hungry for food. And the feeders of hope (mainly economic) have from these strivings of dissatisfaction managed to create a ‘world picture’ from which it is very hard to escape.

Man grows towards “perfection”; bad grows towards good and down towards up, until our “little mechanism” – hope – was achieved within us probably to cushion the shock of thought, but manages to warp our whole world. Perhaps, during our development, our species developed the trick of memory and with it a counter-balancing projection called “the future”. The shock absorber, hope, had to be included within us otherwise we may well have destroyed ourselves in despair. For if ever a man were deeply and unconsciously sure that his future would be no better than his past he might deeply wish not to live. 

We have made our mark on our world but nothing that trees, plants, ice and erosion cannot remove in a fairly short time. And it is both strange and sad (and symptomatic) that the majority of people reading this speculation (since that is what it can only be) will feel a treason in me for so speculating. Hope still controls the future and man will approach perfection, and finally pulling himself free will take his rightful place due to his power and virtue.

In the spirit of enrichment, many turn to the classical myths: Sisyphus turning fate into hope; Pandora opening her box for the ills of the world and leaving the most important still trapped inside; Atlas with his finite and everlasting load on his back, uncomplaining, and Prometheus. Go back to the original Aeschylean Prometheus:

Chorus: Did you perhaps go further than you have told us?

Prometheus: I caused mortals to cease foreseeing doom.

Chorus: What cure did you provide them with against that sickness?

Prometheus: I placed in them blind hope.

Until next time (with the hope that not all hope is blind),

Peripatetic Scribe