They say hope dies last of all. But perhaps only in some of us…
…I am, for instance, a depressive, but by the same token
have a converse tendency towards optimism, it may be in the lineage – I come
from a prosperous and loving family.
I have a bad day, a bad week, a bad month, any of which can
topple me for a time, and yet somehow I manage to right myself in the end, and
get back to feeling OK, good even.
Still, I have come across one or two people in three decades
on this small, wet and windy planet, and heard of many more, for whom this
sadly does not happen - perhaps hope for these people dies early.
If so, why?
I think it is important to be reminded that all of us are individuals in a society that is, at
present, tripping over itself with the excitement of being
inter-connected/online; that we don’t allow ourselves to get caught up in a
frenzy that shouts more more more, new new new, now now now, me me me; and remember that we should
relate to one another directly in a mindful sense (taking into account pasts,
as well as presents and futures), not through the medium of mainstream rhetoric
that can be irrelevant, involve the unattainable, and be not always good for us
on any terms – mainstream rhetoric that can blind us to the fortunes of others less
fortunate, who may share (at least) our physical living spaces.
In the perceived need to make a life in the image of what society,
the illusion of progress, inter-connectedness, and the imagined future apparently
decrees, we often neglect personal relationships that do not quite fit in with
this (aspirational) ‘hive’ mentality that mainstream rhetoric can consolidate
in our minds.
We need to see for ourselves that we are nearly all vessels
of hope for at least someone in the great swamp of existence. But not just vessels of hope for our partners
and close family members, also the (potentially) friendless, the jobless, the
sick and ill, the outsiders wanting an ‘in’.
We are needed, and not necessarily, not always, by the
people we know we are close to, or indeed the demands of the ‘hive’, but by the
people we are aware that exist on the fringes of our conscience: in more simple
terms, the guy or girl we know lingering awkwardly on the edge of a group of
friends at a social gathering, unsure how to join in; the lonely old man we
pass everyday on the way to work we never say ‘good morning’ to; the Big-issue
seller who stands on the same street-corner daily, asks if we want to buy a
copy, that we routinely ignore – all may be experiencing mute agony and despair,
all would benefit from our recognition.
It’s not as if we have to buy a copy of the Big-issue
necessarily, or the lonely old man breakfast, or spend the whole evening out
talking to the awkward friend, but a little acknowledgement can go a long way,
at the same turn reinforcing in us the notion that life happens everywhere, and
not just on Planet You-or-I; that questions need to be asked by us of the
plight of others, questions we would ask and try and answer of and for
ourselves.
To be a vessel of hope for someone is inconvenient in the
sense it can mean giving more than we will get back, at least in the short
term, sometimes in the long term too; and giving or sacrificing something –
even if only our time – can be uncomfortable, because perhaps we are not used to
giving or making sacrifices for people beyond those we believe can more or less
reciprocate in full. Our lives are less
bothersome as a consequence, but they are also more insular and less broad in
experience; and the more we allow our horizons to be hemmed, the more we, and
the people close to us, become another nuclear cell in the ‘hive’, the more the
‘hive’ develops to the detriment of charity, and the more the disparity between
the haves and have-nots is likely to grow.
If, however, we can be on an individual basis vessels of
hope for someone that exists in a hemisphere slightly out of our typical milieu, the ‘hive’ can be a force for good, and the aforementioned medium
of mainstream rhetoric can change to better understand and carry the human
flotsam that otherwise is beached and disregarded, and become something of a
river of inclusion, generosity of spirit, and hope.
Pain and suffering, at present, do not feature in the
mainstream rhetoric of the ‘hive’, but they should for the good of our society
as a whole. And the government, in forthcoming welfare reforms, could do with appreciating this.
Meanwhile, Mother Teresa – a remarkable person by any human
standard – understood something of this when she said, to paraphrase, that
loving is giving until it hurts; this is perhaps part of what it takes to be a
vessel of hope for somebody, but a part that can enrich in that to become
accustomed to a level of pain is to be able to better comprehend the needs of
the less well-off.
Hope is fostered in us and carried for us often by other
people in and around our lives, and if we ignore our duty to be vessels of
hope, hope will continue to die early for the people on the fringes who we
don’t engage with on a real and personable basis.
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