I finished chapter four of Rebecca Solnit’s book of essays, Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities, “False Hope and Easy Despair.” She wrote this in the aftermath of 9/11 and the Bush wars, but nothing is limited to that time. It easily applies today. There’s false hope in the claim that ICE raids will make the U.S. safer, when in reality issues such as hunger, lack of housing, loss of medical care, and depriving residents of due process rights are more credible threats against our security and safety. Many of us also suffer from easy despair: so long as there is harm somewhere, we are not allowed to enjoy life. We keep our eyes on the catastrophe and demand utopia for all.
Solnit makes the case that looking at either pole makes us miss signs of real hope, the swelling tide, the small victory. It struck me that this is one of the few essays I’ve read about hope that is grounded in reality. It doesn’t state that hope comes from a greater power or define nonbelievers as those who by definition dwell in despair. She writes, “Hope is not a door, but a sense that there might be a door at some point, some way out of the problems of the present moment even before that way is found or followed.”
Hope might draw from intuition. Hope might draw from an earlier hope that succeeded. It might draw from the awareness that bodies can heal, seasons will change, species can recover. Hope isn’t limited to what we believe; it’s what we envision. It’s creative, it draws from knowledge, it finds threads and patterns of change that together may make a new design. Today, I am hopeful. Do you feel it too?