E.B. White’s Beautiful Letter to a Man Who Had Lost Faith in Humanity
I want to defend and buoy hope – it’s a fragile, quirky thing, but it has the power to help us act in the face of finitude
Hope is vitalising. When it pulses, we aspire toward better futures and conspire with what we have and have been. In its absence, we often grow listless, even court despair. I thus want to defend hope, underscore what we gain i... See more
Hope is vitalising. When it pulses, we aspire toward better futures and conspire with what we have and have been. In its absence, we often grow listless, even court despair. I thus want to defend hope, underscore what we gain i... See more
John Lysaker • Our days are both rough and slippery. Hope brings traction | Psyche Ideas
Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously hea
... See moreRebecca Solnit • Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities
Tim: I think optimism is the expectation that things are going to be OK. That we’re going to get a good outcome. Hope is much more about meaning; hope is the will to hold on to our values in the face of difficulty. Optimism is one kind of hope, a rather flimsy sort of hope. What we need now is a more resilient kind of hope, one not based on an expe
... See moreAndrew Boyd • I Want a Better Catastrophe: Navigating the Climate Crisis with Grief, Hope, and Gallows Humor
Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard-earned, makes demands upon us, and can often feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on Earth. Hopefulness is not a neutral position either. It is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism. Each redemptive or loving act, as small as you like, Valerio, such as reading to your ... See more