I was about to settle down on this entry, when I felt this nagging feeling that I should google this title first.
Turns out, Mr. Obama wrote the book on hope, literally.
So I should throw the man a bone and quote his speech from where I must have subconsciously lifted this title from.
In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope? .... I'm not talking about blind optimism here — the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don't talk about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it.
No, I'm talking about something more substantial.
It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker's son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope!
Ah hope. The nerve of that feeling, disposition to rally against the grain, to impose itself on us. Pushing us outside our comfort zones to chase shooting stars.
But how do we even catch falling stars and other such most precious things when they're out of our reach?
Perhaps Elon Musk said it best, When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.
People have said that this one of the things I'm good at. My exuberance. My optimism. My chutzpah.
How and why I have come to be this beacon of confident aspirations?
I do not really understand why. Perhaps it was the steady diet of Disney films and their protagonists daring to dream of adventure in the great wide somewhere. Maybe it's just that they say I'm an "old soul" - whatever that means. That I dare.
Confession time. When I started writing this particular entry, about two weeks ago, I had intended it to be a treatise on why we should hope. I had envisioned this to be some sweeping inspirational epic - a dissection on hope, to be the be all and all.
However, now is not two weeks ago.
Now, I am considerably diminished. My spirit dissipated. Like a open bottle of soda under the hot summer sun. Sickly sweet with no sparkle.
It was simple really. It was something that could have been fulfilled by anybody. That was literally the word used, anybody.
I certainly had the gall to think I was that somebody that could have fulfilled that role.
As it happened, I failed in my quest. I had journeyed far. Under the pretense of accompanying others on an adventure I had hesitated to partake in. However, I could not pass up the opportunity to try. It was a covert mission of sorts - to woo that one person that had made me feel like I had never felt in my colorful life.
I don't understand why. Logic, in all its falsehood fails me.
Endlessly manipulable logic failed me. Emotion, on the other hand, however maligned, sang clarion songs in my heart - illogical but irrevocably true.
Yet, I failed, a quest that could have been accomplished by anybody. The conclusion is irrefutably definite, if I was not the somebody that could have been anybody, I was, in fact, nobody.
Hope - you cruel audacious beast. How dare you present yourself to me bearing your promises?
How dare you cheer me on, like the fool that I was to follow your song?
In the end, you were right. What's the point?
Nothing can be done.
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