That’s a new riff on the old Jerry-Wright-inspired theme, eh?
The phrase popped in my head, but I had intended to post on this rough topic anyway. What is the value of hope? What are its pluses and minuses?
We assume hope is useful, but what if the condition is objectively hopeless–as for example for a Soviet dissident in the Gulag Archipelago?
I have spoken before of the value of learning to breath underwater, and wanted to add an another analogy. Many years ago I read somewhere about the Australian SAS selection process, which is different from any of which I have read. In most Special Operations selection processes, you have a defined period of “hell”, which ends roughly on schedule. Usually you go 4-5 days with little or no sleep, and considerable physical stress.
In the SAS Selection, though, they told them several times, after days of arduous work, that it was over. In the case I remember, a truck came to pick them up from the desert somewhere, then drove off just as they were to get in. As I recall thinking at the time, the process seemed to be geared to select people who were able to operate without hope, who just went on and on no matter what.
As an interesting, to me, historical note, I was reading the memoirs of a VC commander and he said they feared the Aussies more than anyone. He said the Americans–SEAL’s and Army SF–would set an ambush, then call in air strikes. Once the air strike was over, they were safe. With the Aussies, however, they would engage them in close over and over, and killed a lot more of them, since their fire was obviously more accurate. They could see their targets.
The value of hope is that it fills you with energy; it gives you pleasing images that comfort you in distress. No matter how bad your present reality, you can look forward to something better.
The detriment to repeatedly dashed specific hopes–and yes I am allowing myself some vague autobiography here–is they turn easily to cynicism, anger, and hopelessness of the sort that causes a collapse of effort.
My confidence in myself is that I know I can endure damn near anything. I do often. Hell: been there, done that. I allow myself images. I try to see positive futures for myself, those I care about, and the world as a whole; but I don’t expect them. Hoping too much is like leaning forward too far–you are prone to falling over.