What is life without hope?
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It's a question a friend of mine has been asking a lot as a simple turn of phrase lately, but, as ever, her words have inspired thought.
Wikipedia's online dictionary, the aptly named Wiktionary, defines hope as "the belief or expectation that something wished for can or will happen". It proffers the concept of a human will or desire holding the power to make something come to be. In these most basic of forms, it seems almost insubstantial; like the foundations of a faith born without evidence or proof and yet believed in so completely as to make it an intrinsic motivation for living.
So, should this most basic of unsubstantiated desires be granted such pre-eminence in our lives? Should we succumb to a sense of unsupported optimism for things that might never be? If something we wish for is going to happen, then surely the having of hope is an irrelevance. And if something is unlikely to occur, is it right that we should retain such desires that it might yet come to pass when the failure to realise those desires might lead to disappointment?
During the course of my research, a word that has appeared repeatedly as a parallel to hope is fear. Wiktionary defines fear as a "strong, uncontrollable, unpleasant emotion caused by actual or perceived danger or threat", which admittedly sounds all the more foreboding. Perhaps by not having hope, all we are left with is a perceived knowledge that the things we desire might not come unto us; a fear that our aspirations may never be realised. Given the choice of which belief to have, hope obviously has a more natural and comforting appeal.
So, instead we cling to the preferable emotion to prevent us having to experience the less pleasant alternative and enable us to keep living. President John F. Kennedy took this a step further when he said:
"We should not let our fears hold us back from pursuing our hopes."
On this point a new concept is presented. To live in hope so as not to play host to a fear of the alternative is one thing. But to use that hope as a motivation to take action is something else entirely. If one's hope is in the achievable, then theoretically there is no harm in acting upon it (within reason). But what if we hope for something that we cannot have? Might acting upon it serve only to bring about a realisation of the futility of such actions, replacing the comforting sensation of hope with its opposite number in fear or despair?
I suppose, in some cases, acting upon hope is the only way to find out whether or not something is achievable. Perhaps it is only by not acting that hope—and perhaps life—becomes futile. A life without hope might be a scary prospect, but when all things are considered how different is a life lived only in hope?
In answer to this I offer only a question of my own: is it better to know and accept an unhappy truth, or to retain some semblance of hope that things may yet be as you desire? This is a question for which I have no answer.