Hope

I said: “Emmerson Mnangagwa has got me hoping against hope.”  I use the italicised phrase rather too often.  The “hope” here, implying it’s futile, is plain enough; it’s a saying and people know what you mean.  Even I know what I mean. 

But when I think about it, I realise it’s one of those superfluous words, fillers in conversation as much as “so to speak” or “like” or “um” and “er”.  When it comes down to it, what the hell is “hope”?  Things are as they are and you do your best, or your third best, and you get on with things, like all creatures do, because the only way to live is to strive.  Some people happen to be optimistic so, in the sense that they really can’t deal with thoughts of the worst, they have “hope”.  Pessimists just plug away.  But that’s as far as you can go.  The end result’s the same. 

There is a whole great two-day conference I’ve been invited to on the theme of hope, and the assumption is that it’s a commodity and there isn’t enough of it about.  But what can the participants say?  I know already that to venture forth Polyanna-ishly or Micawberishly isn’t very satisfactory.  On the other hand, having a plan might be, and to adopt a Stoical frame of mind is positively sensible.

I fight a losing battle against redundant words.  “Spirituality” is another, a vague word, a vague notion likely to blend into feyness, while, say, “sensibility” or “wonderment” or “intensity” or whatever, according to context, should be used instead.  Next, “faith” is a word that should be actively avoided, especially in places where “wilful blindness” might be more accurate.  (People of faith can be fine folk, like anyone else.  My beef is that there are insolent people who assume people of faith to be morally superior to rational people, as if any old belief is better than healthy doubt.  Discrimination against rational thinking is settling into a trend, the emotions vaunted, investigative reporting reviled, Richard Dawkins transformed into a hate figure.  Ah, well....  End of side-rant.)

But we live particularly dangerously, in these dangerous times, when whole books are written on the theme of hope and it’s seen as necessary instrument for living.

Stoicism: I was beguiled by Marcus Aurelius just when I began questioning the convoluted creeds I’d inherited.  I fear I haven’t changed much since.  Perhaps I should think about that. 

Perhaps I should set myself a modern task and sum this up in 140 characters.  I’m told you can use 280 now but that’s cheating.