It’s easier to hope with your eyes closed

Gia came home from school one day in the second grade, thrilled to bits and jumping for joy. They had a tug of war contest that day, boys versus girls, and, needless to say, the girls won! “We were all pulling with all our might. I had my eyes closed and was pulling as hard as I could”. “Is it easier to pull with your eyes closed?” I asked. “No, it’s easier to hope with your eyes closed” she replied!

Of all our human emotions, and good lord we have a myriad, hope is by far the most treasured as well as the most maligned. Is it the greatest of all evil, or is it the saving grace by which we live our lives? Did Pandora release evil into the world and keep hope in the box to benefit humanity, or did she send all the good things back to the gods and keep hope as the worse evil of all for humanity?

Does hope make it impossible for us to accept the circumstances of our lives and so render us forever longing for something better, unable to be at peace? Or does it give us some solace and help us deal with what the gods have seen fit to send our way?

Perhaps the answer lies somewhere in the middle and varies greatly not only amongst people, but also for the same person at different points in our life. Hope is defined as “the feeling of expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen” and “grounds for believing that something good might happen”. Expectation, desire, and reason – three things needed to generate that strange emotion, hope. But do you really need expectation and reason? Or does desire suffice?

Is there such a thing as false hope? Matt Santos, a character on my beloved show, The West Wing, declares that there’s no such thing as false hope, that hope is real. What absolute rot. Of course there’s false hope, we have all lived false hope. My ardent hope that an exam I was ill-prepared for would be canceled was always a false hope, there wasn’t the slightest chance it was going to come true, and I knew that, even as I hoped with all my heart that it would somehow come true. Someone who is on her deathbed but still hopes for a full recovery is certainly labouring under a false hope. Gia, whose eyes light up everytime we praise her for being responsible, hoping that today’s the day we will give her a much-longed for cell phone, is quite definitely cherishing a false hope.

But does the fact that the outcome is a foregone conclusion, make the feeling of hope any less intense? Is it truly “false”? Isn’t it still a desire for a particular thing to happen, whether or not there are strong grounds to expect that? So then that must mean that hope is real. Hope gives us courage to face our challenges and work towards the better future. Hope isn’t the greatest evil, it’s the greatest blessing known to man.

Mowgli longs to play with two dogs at the park. The dogs in question only have eyes for each other and completely and thoroughly ignore everyone else. It’s been two years and Mowgli has not given up hope. He still runs after them, barks and play growls with the same intensity, every single day. Hope is real.

The world seems to be in a downward spiral, every country seems to have a moutain of problems to tackle, seemingly insurmountable ones. The pandemic has rocked the world and completely altered the way we live our lives. There is hatred, deep divisions, a total mistrust in our fellow man. Through all the chaos, hope exists, hope is real, we cling to it for comfort. As my wise daughter said, it’s easier to hope with our eyes closed. And yet, here we all are, eyes wide open, hoping.