Unfettered from hope

When I look at the changes in me since I gave up hope, I'm surprised I didn't do it sooner.

Popular culture is constantly harping on the importance of having hope. While having hope in the future is a healthy thing to develop when confronted with a failed relationship, it can be absolutely debilitating when the problem facing you is bigger than your mind can comprehend and has horrifying consequences that will affect humanity from this point forward. That's where we sit now for any number of reasons, all of which are well underway and converging in a perfect storm that leaves even civilization's future in doubt. (I don't feel it's necessary to justify this belief--the information is out there and plentiful.)

In the context of something so threatening, so massive, "hope" is not only ineffectual, it's simply delusional. Hope is a very understandable coping mechanism that in our current circumstances easily turns into depression and numbness, because on a deep subconscious level we know that hope is a stall tactic--it gives us some psychological cushion, but it won't change anything. It puts us out of synch with our genuine inner knowing, which is a deeply wrenching experience over time as hope and reality drift further apart.

In my own case, as long as I hoped that I would get a writing contract with one of my standard corporate clients or even full-time employment, I was paralyzed. How could I do anything constructive in facing the larger realities dead ahead if I had to avoid spending money on preparation until I got an income? And how could I whole-heartedly throw myself into critical survival tasks when at any moment I might be yanked back into the 8:00 to 5:00 thing, thus losing any traction I might have to move forward toward a more livable future? These quandaries were a direct result of "living in hope." Whose hope?

Hope is based on the popular opinion that things can, should, and will go back to "normal," yet normal is dying before our eyes. Giving up that illusion was the best thing I ever did for myself. Today I'm focused, energetic, involved, and evolving. I'm  wonderfully free in a way I've never been before, a participant not a spectator. I may never benefit in the long run from anything I'm doing, but I am free--and the actions I take to build a forest garden is my legacy, a gift of love to someone I will never know.