- Hope is the most useless concept in the English language!
- Without Hope people will perish!
Which of the two above ideas is true? Is Hope a useless idea or is Hope essential for human progress and prosperity? In my blog this week, I would like to explore each of these ideas and then you can make up your mind which point of view you choose to accept.
Hope as Useless Concept:
If you believe in Hope, you have to believe in God or a higher power because Hope nullifies any effort on your part to change anything. For instance, I say “I Hope to win the lottery.” This is nothing short of wishing for a miracle or wishing that a higher power will take favor on me and overcome the billion to one odds against my ticket winning. Or I might say “I Hope my children will grow up and be happy and prosperous.” What power can make this happen except an all-powerful entity that many call God? If I am hoping for my children to be happy it appears that I can do nothing more to make this happen than to sit on a rock and repeat “Hope, Hope, Hope, over and over again.
When did Hope ever change anything. Change takes effort both mentally and physically. Hope relies on something ephemeral that will happen to spontaneously make things better. “I Hope I will do well on the test tomorrow.” As Yoda said about the word “Try”, “There is no try, there is either DO or DO NOT.” Hoping will never get you good grades. Study, practice, and more study are the only things that have ever led to good grades. Do you get to Carnegie Hall by Hoping? The trope that Carnegie Hall puts on their refrigerator magnets and tote bags reads “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, Practice, Practice.” It does not say “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Hope, Hope, Hope.”
Perhaps Hope is an idea supported by those who want to keep the masses quiet and lazy. Karl Marx said that “Religion is the opiate of the Masses.” I have often said that today “Sports is the opiate of the masses.” Hope is simply another opiate. We can keep hoping that Donald Trump will not be elected. We can keep hoping that the Israeli Palestinian problem will be resolved. We can keep hoping that our lives will be healthy. We can hope all day long and nothing is going to happen unless we get off our butts and fight to change things.
Generative AI defines Effort as follows:
“Effort is the physical or mental activity needed to achieve something. It can also refer to the use of energy to get something done, or the exertion of strength or mental power.”
Effort means doing something. Either you use your brain, or you use your muscles, but you do something that leads to a desired outcome. Hope does not imply any such effort. Here are three AI definitions of Hope:
“As a noun, hope is a feeling that something good will happen or be true. It can also mean a desire accompanied by expectation, or the thing that one has a hope for.”
“As a verb, hope means ‘to expect with confidence’ or ‘to cherish a desire with anticipation’.”
“In the Bible, hope is a confident expectation of what God has promised. It is a confident expectation and desire for something good in the future, with moral certainty.”
So, Hope comes down to an expectation or feeling. An expectation or feeling that without any effort on your part, God, or something else is going to provide you with some desired outcome. To win that lottery, all you need to do is Hope long and hard enough and you will be rewarded with tons of cash. I only Hope you do not spend it all in one place.
To sum up, those who Hope for what they want are living in a fool’s paradise of dreams and wishes. I would expect that the same people who put all their faith in Hope also believe in the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. I have already mentioned a belief in a benevolent God that begs credibility and reality.
Hope as Essential for Happiness and Progress:
How could we ever make progress without dreams and wishes? Who would ever have the motivation to try anything or to make any effort if they were not fueled by Hope. By a belief that their efforts would and could achieve a desired effect. The Bible says that “Without Hope, the people will perish.” Can you imagine a life without Hope? It would be a sad cruel world if people could not at least believe that tomorrow may be better than today. That tomorrow could bring an end to the wars and violence that plague our world.
All good things must have Hope behind them. I married my present wife with the Hope that I could do a better job on this marriage than I did on the first. I started college after being a terrible student in high school with the Hope that I would have the focus and discipline at 25 years of age that I did not have when I was fourteen years old.
There are many pragmatic concepts that we can use as rules or guides for our lives. Some of them make good sense. Some do not. Hope does not lend itself well to pragmatism. Hope is of the soul and spirit and not of the brain and intellect. Great minds may say that Hope is for fools, but many of our “great minds” tend to be bigger fools because they ignore the emotional needs of people. Hope is food for the spirit and soul just as ideas and theories are food for the mind. People need both a heart and a brain to live. Without Hope, there is no heart.
I am sure that you are familiar with the popular author Robert Fulghum. I think his first book was “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” This was a book of short essays written with some great insights and a very imaginative sense of humor. One of the quotes from this book that pertained to the concept of Hope was this bit of wisdom:
“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That Hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.”
To sum up, Hope comes from the heart. Without Hope we are not human beings. With no hope we are little more than automatons. Robots will probably never be able to hope. They are quite logical. A robot can waste no effort on Hope. Can you imagine Commander Spock from the original Star Trek series exclaiming, “Gee, I Hope we can get back to the ship in one piece.” Spock would never have issued such a plea, but Bones or Dr. McCoy would be quite comfortable with the sentiment. Kirk on the other hand would be too busy dashing about to worry about Hope either for better or worse.
Conclusions:
What do you think friends? Do we strike Hope from our vocabulary and set off for a brave new world with logic and knowledge or do we take a moment each day for a prayer of Hope. What if a prayer blended both points of view? In case you do want such a prayer, here is a Buddhist prayer that I think would help your soul and spirit without stepping too hard on your faith in logic and knowledge. — Sorrow & Hope: Prayer to Kuan Yin, Mar 31, 2018, Dharma Insights, News
Aging Capriciously 