On Hope

To hope or not to hope. Is that the question?

I have tended to struggle with the concept of “hope.”

I imagine that how each of us feels or thinks about "hope" depends on how each of us defines, or understands, the term. When you think about “hope,” Do you feel encouraged? Or do you feel discouraged? Does hope bring a feeling of relief? Or do you feel hopeless when you focus on hope? Does focusing on hope help ease anxious feelings? Does it inspire confidence and help you feel engaged? Or do you feel guarded or irritated?

In 2006, I came upon an essay in Orion magazine called “Beyond Hope,” by Derrick Jensen, that seemed to settle the question for me by allowing me to stop thinking in terms of "hoping or not hoping."

In part, I was tired of feeling sad, angry, overwhelmed, or frustrated about the state of the planet. Jensen’s essay seemed to provide an antidote. The antidote to my sadness, anger, and frustration was neither to "hope" or to “give up hope,” but rather to act. "When we realize the degree of agency we actually do have," says Jensen, "we no longer have to 'hope' at all. We simply do the work. We make sure salmon survive. We make sure prairie dogs survive. We make sure grizzlies survive. We do whatever it takes." You can substitute “salmon,” “prairie dogs,” and “grizzlies” with any number of other living creatures (human and non-human) and ecosystems in distress. He concludes the essay by saying "When you give up on hope, you turn away from fear.”

Fast forward to today. To my surprise, I find myself often using the word “hope” again. I’ve been telling my friends lately that over the past year or so I have felt a renewed sense of hope. “What do I mean by this?,” I ask myself. Do "things" (the state of the planet) seem to be much better than they were in 2016, or even better than they were when I was born in the early 60s?

By most accounts, no, not really. So why am I feeling hopeful?

Then, last week, I came upon another essay on the topic of hope published in 2020, which opens with the author saying "Hope always bothered me."

That caught my attention.

The author, Roshi Joan Halifax, a Zen Buddhist, explains: "Indeed we seem to be sinking. And having this sinking feeling coloring my world, I could not utter the word 'hope' without feeling like I was betraying reality." She goes on to recount how the previous year (so in 2019, at the start of the pandemic), she became "hopeful" and decided to look further into the concept of hope by exploring what hope "is not."

What she concluded: Hope is not optimism. Hope is not a belief that everything will be alright.

In her investigation, she came upon the words of one of my favorite writers, Barbara Kingsolver, on the matter of hope. Kingsolver’s words are worth requoting:

“I have been thinking a lot lately about the difference between being optimistic and being hopeful. I would say that I’m a hopeful person, although not necessarily optimistic. Here’s how I would describe it. The pessimist would say, ‘It’s going to be a terrible winter; we’re all going to die.’ The optimist would say, ‘Oh, it’ll be all right; I don’t think it’ll be that bad. The hopeful person would say, ‘Maybe someone will still be alive in February, so I’m going to put some potatoes in the root cellar just in case.’ … Hope is ... a mode of resistance … a gift I can try to cultivate.”

Roshi Joan Halifax titles her essay “Wise Hope.” Informed by her Buddhist perspective, her view of hope somewhat echoes the words of Barbara Kingsolver, and maybe even Derrick Jensen's.

She says: "If we look at hope through the lens of Buddhism, we discover that wise hope is born of radical uncertainty, rooted in the unknown and the unknowable. And we are sure in the vise of a radically uncertain time. But really, how could we ever know what is going to happen? Yes, experts are modeling the future, but they are not making the future. And these models can lead us astray."

In other words, when we act from a perspective of "wise hope" we do not act because the outcome is guaranteed, or likely, or probable, or even possible. Wise hope has no attachment to outcome.

And, she continues, "Wise hope also reflects the understanding that what we do matters, even though how and when it may matter, who and what it may impact, are not things we can really know beforehand. Ultimately, we cannot know what will unfold from our actions now or in the future; yet we can trust that things will change; they always do. But our vows, our actions, how we live, what we care about, what we care for, and how we care really do matter all the same."

With this renewed perspective on hope, I carry on. And I do so mindfully and without attachment to outcome, even in the face of the sadness and occasional despair that, indeed, still ebbs and flows in me.

I carry on guided by three questions:
What is it that I care about?
What is it that I care for?
How is it that I care?

And in this inquiry, I hear the poet Mary Oliver’s words in the final two lines of her poem,
The Summer Day:
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?”

Tell me.