Yet Another Manifesto (This one's about hope)

I really should be dong my homework right now, but hope is on my mind.

Those of you who know me know that I have said many times that if there is one thing that I believe in above anything else (including religion or empirical fact) it is hope. Without hope, I see no purpose for... well... anything.

There's a lot of pain in the world. I'm not gonna list any specific examples, because you know them. There is pain on the other side of the globe, in the bedroom down the hall, and in you. There's the obvious pain of violence, and the hidden pain of loss. I recently attended series of monologues where a very specific kind pain (the pain of sexual violence) was put on display for us all to see. The event shook me, and I was left feeling very unsettled. The most unsettling thing about it, however was the apparent offering of appropriate response.

The second to last monologue was, in my interpretation, the offered appropriate response to all the information we'd just consumed, and that response was rage. Now, I don't really like rage. It makes me uncomfortable, and I never know what to do with it. Mourning? That I can handle. Hope? That I could muster. But, rage?

I had a conversation today with someone about this event. She said that maybe the hopelessness was the point of the thing. That the reality of the situation is that many people are left in hopeless situations, and we must acknowledge that. That my sense of being unsettled was exactly the point.

I think I understand what she was trying to say, but, you know, that doesn't really help me. I know about this stuff already. Okay, that sounds arrogant. I do not know the pain of rape, or genocide, and I never will. But, I know that it's happening, and I do not want to ignore it any more than I want to marinate in it. If you tell me your story of pain, I will want to offer you a story of healing, of hope.

I want to make something especially clear here. I am not trying to ignore the problem, and I am not trying to pretend it doesn't exist (at least, I think I'm not). I would like to propose healing, comfort, and mourning over rage and gawking. This requires digging in to the problem even deeper, but with a purpose. It will require getting our metaphorical hands dirty. After all, at the end of the day the combat medic has had far more blood on his hands than any soldier.

This is the value of hope. Hope, not unlike fear, is self-sustaining. By believing in hope above all else, I will never be utterly hopeless. By sharing hope above all else, there is no need to wallow in pain. There is no need to rage at empty skies and full cocktail parties. Speak, now that's a different story, but rage is no longer the appropriate response.

Earlier today I entertained the idea that perhaps hope was sometimes an inappropriate response to a situation. I have decided to reject that theory. I am not going to ignore the pain of the world, in fact I want to confront it head on. I will not ignorantly soar above it, or defeated, burrow into it. I will charge headlong into it and it's gonna hurt. But, it's good.

I have been hopeless before, and I have found myself at times unable to communicate hope to another, but never from lack of trying.

You, reading this, you probably know me pretty well. If you've read this far, I hope you understand where I'm coming from. I hope a lot of things. But, one thing that I hope above most is that this determination against despair would be contagious. I know that I can't be alone in the trenches here, and I think that some of you are already down here with me. I'm not the standard bearer. Hell, I don't even know if we have a flag. But, we have a cause, and I am willing to fight my whole life for the sake of hope.