owning our own hope

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“Much like we cannot let the work of building better futures be contingent on feeling hopeful, we can’t let corporations or those in power control the flow and definition of hope either. No company or politician can hand you hope. We have to build it in and among ourselves as a beginning, not as an end. How does one change the future? How do we get to the tomorrows we want and not the ones we don’t? And a core piece of that question has to do with the way in which insects melt themselves into goo. Must we fully dissolve ourselves and our world in order to get to the futures we want? Do we have to burn it all down, destroy it all, and rebuild from that melted space? Or can we change more gradually, more incrementally, more like the hermit crabs, upgrading slowly as we go?

As Octavia Butler once said, “There’s no single answer that will solve all our future problems. There’s no magic bullet. Instead, there are thousands of answers—at least. You can be one of them if you choose to be.”

Rose Eveleth

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“The unicorn is a lonely, solitary creature that symbolizes hope.”

Ally McBeal

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The world sends out billions of messages, small to large, which puncture our hope. Some of the messages are intended to do so and some are not. Intentions aside, they all do. Because of that grind of stories we seem to face every day, I do believe a lot of people just seem to be more empty these days.

Well.  Certainly less full of hope if they aren’t completely empty.

I say this even to the people who are working hard to find a way to improve the world. I say that because even listening to smartish podcasts where brilliant articulators of issues thrive, more often than not you walk away a bit deflated. A bit discouraged. With a bit of a feeling that the meta issues are so overwhelming, well, what can I do?

In other words.

Hope punctured.

The truth is in today’s world we seem to get caught up in the everyday grind of the story of the day. And, yes, most stories don’t reflect the best version of people or the positive side of emergent issues.  What this means is that it can get fairly easy to step on to the slippery slope leading down to a belief we are in some shithole with no leader or steps to get out of it. And what THAT means <at least to me> is that far too many people are abandoning hope and we desperately need some people to offer us some good ole pragmatic hope.

Why do I feel so strongly about this?

I imagine lack of hope is kind of like entering a personal hell and even deflated, or deflating, hope is kind of like feeling like you are stepping onto the slippery slope into hell. Needless to say. This isn’t good for anyone.

I would be remiss if I didn’t say that the corollary to that is those of us with hope to give should share it whenever we can to get others out of that hell or at least off the slippery slope.

Which leads me to … uhm … unicorns.

Yeah. Unicorns. I thought about this because a friend of mine, one of the most delightful thinkers I know, and one of the best purveyors of whimsical thinking on serious topics, admitted to a bit of deflated hope.

So, unicorns is the topic today.

Crazy? Sure.  Sounds it.

Hear me out. Hopefully it also makes you think about the people who seem to keep a vision of hope and use it, however they elect to keep that hope at hand, to help them through the days and weeks.

So. This thought is actually grounded in an Ally McBeal episode. The show, in its oft absurd way, showed how sometimes people go to some extreme, if not bizarre, ways to hold on to some light in seemingly dark days. And while the episode was about the holidays, I thought it was pretty relevant to talk about hope.

What do I mean?

Well. I was going to try and write some whizbang words, but instead I found something that someone wrote on their blog <sorry … forgot who> that seemed to create the perfect reason for discussing why seeing unicorns is perfectly acceptable:

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What has made it challenging for me to write this is the darkness that I experience through the world’s anguish at this time. I am not living in days of light—I am living in days in need of light. I need to remember in this time of darkness that there are many who are seeking light.

I listen to the rantings of politicians who seem far more caught up in ideology and party positioning than they do in honestly meeting the deep challenges of our economy, the needs of our people, and caring for our planet. I witness the kindest of people being too busy to adequately separate their own food waste and recycling from their trash to reduce the build-up of what is becoming our planetary garbage dump. I witness fires and weather destroying lives and property and then reflect on the consequence of our priorities when we are unable to respond adequately. In this season of cold, I see the homeless in our own community seeking shelter from the wet and the winter.

And even, perhaps, more sharply, I returned from Israel more aware than ever of the incredibly wide divide between the humanity we perceive and the inhumanity shown by the actions of the leaders in that troubled region.

Right here at home, I am troubled by the inaction of so many of us who speak words of reconciliation, words of peace, words of promise, yet continue to find enemies who need to be stopped rather than people who need to be invited into the dialogue.

Yes, all that is true, yet I need to remember in this time of darkness that there are many who are seeking light.

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Anyway. In the Ally McBeal episode I am referencing someone was fired for saying he saw a unicorn. Silly, yet the judge in the episode suggests “there are a lot of lonely people out there, looking for hope in strange places.”

Yeah. In the end the judge decides that those people can keep their unicorns.

You know?

It sounds a little crazy, but you know what? I agree.

Some people need to believe in unicorns. It doesn’t mean they are nuts. People need to find hope however they can and some people just see the unicorn as hope. And, frankly, why should anyone have any say in where a person may look for that hope?

For god’s sake, all people deserve hope and different people just get there in different ways.

And if someone elects to use a unicorn?

Well, geez, it could be worse, couldn’t it?

“who’s to say the ones who dream of unicorns aren’t the lucky ones these days.”

I know … I know … this sounds nuts … but think about it.

Supposedly people who see unicorns share some of the unicorn’s traits as in they may be lonely, but with virtuous hearts. Mythology also suggests that only pure spirits can approach the unicorn.

In the episode the character who saw it said he didn’t get close to the unicorn, but (here is the part that maybe makes you think a little) “but he won’t have another chance if he stops believing in the unicorn.”

Ok.

That is a bigger thought than just a wacky tv show. If we ask all people to stop “believing in unicorns” do people lose any chance of reaching what they hope for? If we ask people to stop ‘believing in unicorns’ are we asking people to abandon Hope?

Whew.

C’mon.

I know all of this sounds crazy <and it even looks crazy as I type it>, but don’t we really want more of these people in today’s world? Don’t we need just a bit more crazy-like hope in today’s crazy world?

In fact, maybe the people who see unicorns are actually the hope for the rest of us. Maybe they are the ones “where goodness reigns.”

Regardless. Maybe someone who sees a unicorn somehow just feels safer. And I have no right to not allow someone that right in today’s world. As I noted in my opening, the world appears to be doing its best to puncture our hope so maybe we need to create some thoughts that are ‘unpuncturable.’ Maybe we need the whimsical brilliance just to bring a tad of Teflon to our hopes and thinking and quests.

Here is an odd note to add from me, a pragmatic realist, I don’t know if I can explain it, but knowing that maybe someone out there can actually see a unicorn, well, maybe in a weird way they give me hope.

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And, I’m afraid say it out loud because maybe if life finds out it’ll try to beat it out of them and that will be a shame. Because, we all can use a little hope sometimes, you know. That feeling that everything’s going to be okay and that there’s going to be someone there to help make sure of that.

There are people who can make you believe in things you can’t see.

And I think we miss that these days.

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Look. It’s a hard time for everyone these days, but it is a particularly hard time for Hope & dreams right now. Unfortunately, far too many people are being encouraged to think of hope & dreams as some big, fluffy cloud that is surrounded by rainbows and unicorns. Because of that we tend to dismiss the ‘unicorns’ and tend to focus on the fact real horses, zebras and gazelles are dying.

Yes. We have some really serious issues we need to address and many of those serious larger, meta, issues can look overwhelming and unsolvable. But. To me … no hope = hell. And who wants to live in hell?  What I think I know is, well, hell doesn’t have unicorns. It doesn’t have the whimsical. It doesn’t have brilliant wizards. And maybe, just maybe, we should seek out the hope just a bit more often there. Ponder.

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One day in 2017, Alexandra Rowland wrote “The opposite of grimdark is hopepunk. Pass it on.” A style of brutal nihilism had become a trend. It was a sort of dystopian darkness where nothing mattered and everything was void of hope. Enough was enough, so she put words to the something she longed for and learned she was far from alone.

“We’ve all been mean and petty and cruel, but we’ve also been soft and forgiving and kind. Hopepunk says that kindness and softness doesn’t equal weakness, and that in this world of brutal cynicism and nihilism, being kind is a political act. An act of rebellion.”