a faint flutter................

 

Great ideas, it has been said, come into the world as gently as doves.  Perhaps then, if we listen attentively, we shall hear, amid the uproar of empires and nations, a faint flutter of wings, the gentle stirring of life and hope.  Some will say that this hope lies in a nation; others, in a man.  I believe rather that it is awakened, revived, nourished by millions of solitary individuals whose deeds and works every day negate frontiers and the crudest implications of history.  As a result, there shines forth fleetingly the ever threatened truth that each and every man, on the foundation of his own sufferings and joy, builds for all.

-Albert Camus, from this collection of essays

real....................

 

Today, people struggle to find what's real. Everything has become so synthetic that a lot of people, all they want is to grasp onto hope.

-Bob Marley

thanks Ray

Choices..........................

     The prior writes back, overflowing as ever with spirit and new ideas.  "Like love, sometimes hope is a choice," he writes.  "Of course you will know the great Cornel West quote about that, yes?  The difference between hope and optimism?"  The former is a leap beyond all evidence while the other is simply an attempt to work with what it knows.

     "It's a choice I make," he continues, "There's a beautiful album I heard the other day on Spotify, mostly flute, a little vocal.  Called 'I Will Not Be Sad in This World.'"

-Pico Iyer, Aflame: Learning From Silence

a prisoner of hope....................

 

Hope and optimism are different. Optimism tends to be based on the notion that there's enough evidence out there to believe things are gonna be better, much more rational, deeply secular, whereas hope looks at the evidence and says, "It doesn't look good at all. Doesn't look good at all. Gonna go beyond the evidence to create new possibilities based on visions that become contagious to allow people to engage in heroic actions always against the odds, no guarantee whatsoever." That's hope. I'm a prisoner of hope, though. Gonna die a prisoner of hope.

-Cornel West,  couldn't find the source of this quote, but it follows the same vein as this commencement address

Can't wait..................

 

I'm hoping to be astonished tomorrow by I don't know what.

-Jim Harrison

Must not be old.......................

 

Old people live in memory rather than in hope.

-Aristotle, Rhetoric

Love...............................

     Love has bridged the high rises of despair we were about to fall between.  Love has been a penlight in the blackest, bleakest nights.  Love has been a wild animal, a poultice, a dinghy, a coat.  Love is why we have hope. 

-Anne Lamott, Almost Everything: Notes on Hope

Hope........................

 Time, and the work of changing days, has made

Many a bad thing good; fortune has played

With many men, and set them firm again.

-Virgil, as channeled by Montaigne, Book 2, Chapter 3

slandering Pygmies..................

 The United States today stands as a living contradiction to the ‘great man theory of history’. For the US is a great country led by small minds. In recent times, it has been ruled by a narcissistic moral reprobate and it is now being run by a cognitively deficient and scandal-plagued politician. There is a growing feeling, particularly among the young, that today’s America is diminished. Yet the US remains the world’s premier power, and its last best hope against a rising authoritarian tide.

So, how does an America led by mediocrities succeed? The secret sauce lies in two great assets – America’s geography and its constitution.

-Joel Kotkin, as he starts this post

Stories win......................

 . . . there are always two sides to every investment: The number and the story. Every investment price, every market valuation, is just a number from today multiplied by a story about tomorrow.

The numbers are easy to measure, easy to track, easy to formulate. They’re getting easier as almost everyone has cheap access to information.

But the stories are often bizarre reflections of people’s hopes, dreams, fears, insecurities, and tribal affiliations. And they’re getting more bizarre as social media amplifies the most emotionally appealing views.

-Morgan Housel, from here

Hopes......................

 I hope you do more than just survive.  I hope you act boldly without apologizing for who you are or the things you love.  I hope you make art and listen to songs that make you sing out loud.  I hope you discover new places and hidden coffee shops.  I hope you fall in love with stories and dance in snowflakes and raindrops.  I hope you achieve all your dreams and find the courage to love yourself.

                           I hope you live.

-Courtney Peppernell

Sort of hopeful................................

 Neither misery nor folly seems to me any part of the inevitable lot of man.  And I am convinced that intelligence, patience, and eloquence can, sooner or later, lead the human race out of its self-imposed tortures provided it does not exterminate itself meanwhile.

-Bertrand Russell, as culled from his essay, Reflections on My Eightieth Birthday

More hope........................

 In the modern world, if communities are unhappy, it is because they choose to be so. Or, to speak more precisely, because they have ignorances, habits, beliefs, and passions, which are dearer to them than happiness or even life. I find many men in our dangerous age who seem to be in love with misery and death, and who grow angry when hopes are suggested to them. They think that hope is irrational and that, in sitting down to lazy despair, they are merely facing facts. I cannot agree with these men. To preserve hope in our world makes calls upon our intelligence and our energy. In those who despair it is very frequently the energy that is lacking.

-Bertrand Russell, another excerpt from his essay, Reflections On My Eightieth Birthday

Just the facts..................................

 

Aim high.........................

"No one knows enough to be a pessimist."

"Never listen to those who try to influence you with their pessimism."

"Aim high, refuse to choose small thinking and low expectations, and above all, do not be seduced by the absurd idea that there is danger in having too much hope."

-Wayne Dyer

a restless animal..........................

     The ideal of static perfection, which Plato derived from Parmenides and embodied in his theory of ideas, is one which is now generally recognised as inapplicable to human affairs.  Man is a restless animal, not content, like the boa constrictor, to have a good meal once a month and sleep the rest of the time.  Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change.

-Bertrand Russell,  Philosophy And Politics

bias............................

In all of American life, there is a bias towards the happy ending, toward the notion that human resilience and intellect will be a match for any problem.  This holds especially true for problem of white supremacy.  For white people who have not quite taken on the full load of ancestral debt but can sense its weight, there is a longing for some magic that might make the burden of slavery and all that followed magically vanish.  For blacks born under the burden, there is a need to believe that a better day is on the horizon, that their lives, their children's lives, and their grandchildren's lives are not forever condemned to carry that weight, which white people can only but sense.  I felt this need whenever I spoke to audiences about my writing since, invariably, I would be asked what I could say that would give the audience hope.  I never knew how to answer the question.  The writers I loved, whom I sought to emulate, were mostly unconcerned with "hope."  But moreover—what if there was no hope at all?  Sometimes, I said as much and was often met with a kind of polite and stunned disappointment.

-Ta-Nehisi Coates,  We Were Eight Years In Power:  An American Tragedy

And the question arose...........

........................................................"How much should we know?"  And the answer gently wafted by, " Not so much."

Explanation: Beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 6744 is nearly 175,000 light-years across, larger than our own Milky Way. It lies some 30 million light-years distant in the southern constellation Pavo and appears as only a faint, extended object in small telescopes. We see the disk of the nearby island universe tilted towards our line of sight in this remarkably detailed galaxy portrait, a telescopic view that spans an area about the angular size of a full moon. In it, the giant galaxy's elongated yellowish core is dominated by the light from old, cool stars. Beyond the core, grand spiral arms are filled with young blue star clusters and speckled with pinkish star forming regions. An extended arm sweeps past a smaller satellite galaxy (NGC 6744A) at the lower right. NGC 6744's galactic companion is reminiscent of the Milky Way's satellite galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud.

      "The simplicity of the universe is very different from the simplicity of a machine.  He who sees moral nature out and out, and thoroughly knows how knowledge is acquired and character formed is a pedant.  The simplicity of nature is not that which may easily be read, but is inexhaustible.  The last analysis can no wise be made.  We judge of a man's wisdom by his hope, knowing that the perception of the inexhaustibleness of nature is an immortal youth.  The wild fertility of nature is felt in comparing our rigid names and reputations with our fluid consciousness."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson, from his 1841 Spiritual Laws essay

Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.....

Youth walked before me and I followed him until we came to a distant field.  There he stopped, and gazed at the clouds that drifted over the horizon like a flock of white lambs.  Then he looked at the trees whose naked branches pointed toward the sky as if praying to Heaven for the return of their foliage.
And I said, "Where are we now, Youth?"
And he replied, "We are in the field of Bewilderment. Take heed."
And I said. "let us go back at once. for this desolate place affrights me, and the sight of the clouds and the naked trees saddens my heart."
And he replied, "Be patient. Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge."  Then I looked around me and saw a form moving gracefully toward us and I asked, "Who is this woman?"

And Youth replied, "This is Melpomene, daughter of Zeus, and Muse of Tragedy."
"Oh, happy Youth!" I exclaimed, "what does Tragedy want of me, while you are at my side?"
And he answered, "She has come to show you the earth and its sorrows; for he who has not looked on Sorrow will never see Joy."Then the spirit laid a hand upon my eyes.  When she withdrew it, Youth was gone, and I was alone, divested of my earthly garments, and I cried, "Daughter of Zeus, where is Youth?"

Melpomene did not answer; but took me up under her wings, and carried me to the summit of a high mountain. Below me I saw the earth and all in it, spread out like the pages of a book, upon which were inscribed the secrets of the universe.  I stood in awe beside the maiden, pondered the mystery of Man, and struggled to decipher Life's symbols. 

And I saw woeful things: The Angels of Happiness warring with the Devils of Misery, and standing between them was Man, now drawn one way by Hope and now another by Despair. 

I saw Love and Hate dallying with the human heart; Love concealing Man's guilt and besotting him with the wine of submission, praise and flattery; while Hatred provoked him, and sealed his ears and blinded his eyes to Truth.

And I beheld the city crouching like a child of its slums and snatching at the garment of the son of Adam.  From afar I saw the lovely fields weeping over man's sorrow.  I beheld priests foaming like sly foxes; and false messiahs contriving and conspiring against Man's happiness. 

And I saw Man calling upon Wisdom for deliverance; but Wisdom did not hearken to his cries, for he had contemned her when she spoke to him in the streets of the city.

And I saw preachers gazing in adoration toward the heavens, while their hearts were interred in the pits of Greed.
I saw a youth winning a maiden's heart with sweet speech; but their true feelings were asleep, and their divinity was far away.
I saw the lawmakers chattering idly, selling their wares in the market places of Deceit and Hypocrisy.
I saw physicians toying with the souls of the simple hearted and trustful.  I saw the ignorant sitting with the wise, exalting their past to the throne of glory, adorning their present with the robes of plenty, and preparing a couch of luxury for the future. 

I saw the wretched poor sowing the seed, and the strong reaping; and oppression, miscalled Law, standing guard. 

I saw the thieves of Ignorance despoiling the treasures of Knowledge, while the sentinels of Light lay drowned in the deep sleep of inaction.

And I saw two lovers; but the woman was like a lute in the hands of a man who cannot play, but understands only harsh sounds.
And I beheld the forces of Knowledge laying siege to the city of Inherited Privilege; but they were few in number and were soon dispersed.

And I saw Freedom walking alone, knocking at doors, and asking for shelter, but no one heeded her pleas. Then I saw Prodigality striding in splendour, and the multitude acclaiming her as Liberty.

 I saw Religion buried in books, and Doubt stood in her place.

And I saw Man, wearing the garments of Patience as a cloak for Cowardice and calling Sloth Tolerance, and Fear Courtesy.
I saw the intruder sitting at the board of Knowledge, uttering folly, but the guests were silent.
I saw gold in the hands of the wasteful, a means of evil-doing; and in the hands of the miserly as a bait for hatred. But in the hands of the wise I saw no gold.

When I beheld all these things, I cried out in pain, "Oh Daughter of Zeus, is this indeed the Earth? Is this Man?"

In a soft and anguished voice she replied, "What you see is the Soul's path, and it is paved with sharp stones and carpeted with thorns. This is only the shadow of Man. This is Night. But wait! Morning will soon be here!"   

Then she laid a gentle hand upon my eyes, and when she withdrew it, behold! There was Youth walking slowly by my side, and ahead of us, leading the way, marched Hope.

-Kahlil Gibran,  Youth and Hope from The Voice Of The Master

"Our greatest struggle is saying 'no' to fear"...

"If this doesn't get you a little misty then I seriously don't want to know you"

via