Self-Inflicted hope, against inflicted hopelessness…
As previously mentioned, hopelessness must be deliberately inflicted -and to a certain extent accepted- in order to exist. Thus neither hopelessness nor hope should be considered as “normal”, simply because they can’t be; no one would ever need hope in a world where expectations would not arise from unmet needs and growing frustrations. And with hope useless, hopelessness would become obsolete, superfluous. Hopelessness therefore must be inflicted upon authority’s mostly unwilling subjects, through an intricately designed, perpetual scheme of vexatious sufferings, always paired with poverty or its threatening prospect. Hope, as its emotionally balancing counterpart, could exist only where hopelessness has been previously induced, maintained.
Hope is authority’s most cleaver device, offered freely as a substitute for everything and anything between lasting happiness and long life, there to soothe all pain, pacifier for authority’s -fooled into submission- subjects. But the matter’s sadistic twist resides in hope’s need to be self-inflicted, taken and swallowed upon offer, never to be pushed down anyone’s (un)suspecting throat.
Yes, hope must be self-inflicted in order to release its pseudo-rewarding, pseudo-hormones; after all, we were “created” with free will, which means inflicted hope would transform us into machines, isn’t it…?
Sancta semplicitas…
It is so hard to understand now, my own two decades of self-inflicted blind hope called “Christianity”… Hard and humiliating because I wholeheartedly believed it against all sane logic and reason, continuously living the guilt of blaming myself for any emotional failure to abide by its ideology, guilt commonly known as desperation. Because all it’s left for hope if not self-inflicted, falls into desperation’s ever changing maze, with minotaurs of doubt awaiting their prey at every – not prayed for – corner… Christianity’s madness has gone so far as of dumbing otherwise intelligent people into oftentimes praying for “nothing bad to happen” even if there isn’t any foreseeable reason for fear.
It seems as “I’ll be with you always” has its serious problems to be met only by “Ye shall hope I’ll be with your hopes, always…”
-to be continued …-
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THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY 
Although I, like most people, have no desire for bad to happen to me or anyone else, I have come to realize that some bad things have been beneficial, so praying that nothing bad happen may not be in my best interest, nor in the best interest of others.
As far as the rest of your post concerning hope and hopelessness, I find it intriguing and want to ponder it more. My first impression reminded me of a quote by President Snow, a character in Hunger Games:
“Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective. A lot of hope is dangerous. Spark is fine, as long as it’s contained.”
When compared to my understanding of “the authority” and Christianity, I find the quote contradictory since I understand Christianity to impart a lot of hope and not just a little. At the same time I do agree that hope is greater than fear.
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Christianity’s “hope” would be beneficial if it wouldn’t follow the guilt inflicted by it’s requirements upon subjects ushered into existence, endowed with needs and desires, and left on themselves by the same “authority”, to pay for the “sins” they have nothing to do with. If what “Jesus” said one way or another, about no one paying for someone else’s sins is true, then the whole system has already collapsed…
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I sure like this post.
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Thanks my friend. The next deals with “justice”…
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Looking forward to it
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Hi Moshe, my computer dictionary defines hope as ‘a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen’. I’ll let that one pass – as such, it’s too subjective. But then the definition continues ‘grounds for believing that something good may happen.’ This is more interesting for me – ‘grounds for belief’. If I can locate the grounds (for me) then I can believe that something good may happen – I can hope that something good may happen.
The challenge for me is to find the grounds. This can be very difficult but I think they are found not in one thing/person/belief but in a mix of them – rather than investing in just one thing/person/belief (worst thing to do when investing, though the easiest), spread the investments around, have a ‘basket’ of them so to speak.
In other words, ‘to hope’ is a very deliberate, conscious practice – it requires continual, careful nurturing.
I used to think that the most important thing is one’s health but I now believe that without hope there will be no health. For me, therefore, it is an extremely important concept, one which I do and have to give a lot of thought to, particularly living in a period of late capitalism – with all the bastardries in one’s experience that implies. Best regards, Filippo del mondo
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Hi Phil, you see, my “only” problem is the nature of one’s grounds for hope. As yourself have noticed, its range from brain chemical subjectivism to a nearly palpable certitude, makes hope rather mystical, an echo twisting mist good only to carry the weary maze traveler further and further, never to find an exit, but only crumbs thought to be clues, proven to be just means of a meager survival into oblivion.
Religion -mainly xtianity- has also managed to link hope to its embezzeled concept of “good”, ever changing according to the pragmatic needs of its creators, of course in the name of an absentee deity… You see, good is morals and ethics personalised, and therefore devoid of a much needed absolute standard. For example, the good attached to capitalism proves deadly evil for the disadvantaged, while the good of Leninism mirrors the absolute evil of a necessary proletarian dictatorship.
What links both is hope, this self-inflicted belief in some necessity of darkness before dawn, of evil preceeding good.
All the best,
Moshe
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