Chaotic Mess of Gray(Grey?) Matter

They say that a folded paper crane signifies humankind’s greatest emotion:

Hope.

Hope is something of a new phenomena to me. Though I’ve been folding paper cranes obsessively (some people know this), hope is something that I’ve been dreading. Because to me, ironically:

Hope is a double-edged sword.

Oh my…. now that’s not a very nice thing to say now isn’t it?

Hope is, in a sense, a feeling of yearning. You yearn for something because you want it to happen, but the thing is, it hasn’t happened yet. Whether the results of the yearning would bring bad or good implications simply haven’t entered your mind yet. The crux of the matter is you want it. Therefore….

You hope.

And angels will sing their chorus and grant you your most fervent wish. Pfft… yeah right.

Now here’s where things get screwed up. It’s when you don’t get what you want. You wallow in pain, you curse at the unfairness of the world and all the people in it. Then you start to get bitter and cynical. Gah… very ugly stuff.

But on the bright side of the planet, hope is a very good thing. It’s the thing that gets you going no matter how hard you fall. You hope something good will happen, so you bear with it and trudge on to meet that dream of yours. There will be pain, but you’ll smile. There will be downfalls, but you’ll brush yourself and get up to move again. Hope will make you tough.

So yeah, two different views on hope, that simple paper crane that I always fold out of scrap paper. Personally I like the good definition of hope better. We all do. The reason why I wrote about the dark side of hope is simply as a reminder that that’s not the thing you want to get out of hoping for something good. While we sometimes don’t get what we want, it’s not the end of the world. As long as we have hope, there’s always something better behind the corner… of if it’s not better at least it’s adequate.

What do I hope for?

Well…. that would be an interesting thing to find out now wouldn’t it? I hope some of you will find out.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 11th, 2007 at 6:19 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.