Hope Is Not A Strategy

I’ve tried to right most of my wrongs in life.  I’ve tried to love and be loved.  I’ve tried to parent and be parented.  I’ve tried to try. 

Once again, the French-Algerian philosopher speaks up in my brain and says, “happiness is the absence of hope”.   

He understood that life is not a box of chocolates or a warm puppy (or a warm gun) or a bowl of cherries or a highway.  Life just IS.  We can either be hopeful for something we don’t have, or we can acknowledge that we have no control over the big picture, thus there is nothing for which we should hope.

To quote some other (green, plunger-like, alien) beings: “Here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.”     

And yet it’s so difficult not to ask “why?”.  Why me?

(“Vy anyone?” said a German soldier.)

I will continue to practice caring a little, but not too much.  Caring too much is like a social STD; it burns, and it will probably never go away.  If only not caring was easier.  Some people have it (not caring) down to a science.  Or an art.  Or a weapon.  Some people tank the odds of finding other like-minded humanists with whom to spend time, because they don’t care about the hopes and dreams of other people. 

I’m just trying to stay alive and just be peaceful.  Both are becoming elusive. 

Emily Dickenson wrote that “hope is a thing with feathers”.  What the hell is that supposed to mean?  Hope is a bird?!  Birds suck.  They shit all over everything, and they have beady, weird eyes.  Yes, they can soar through the sky, but since I don’t have wings, I will pass on the feathery hope analogy.

 

I’m not trying to say hope is bad.  Maybe it carries certain people through their days.  But I am certain that hope changes nothing, improves nothing, and inspires nothing.  Life is chance. 

Hope is most often a vestige of fools.