Day 6: Hope is stupid

As I saw Advent approaching, my disavowing of hope started presenting itself in my head. It was not as insistent as Job last year, but it was certainly there.  Not believing in hope really gives people pause.  People really want you to believe in hope.  I mean, really want you to believe. 

When I say out loud that I think hope is stupid, people get a certain look on their faces. It’s a look that borders on pity.  It says they want more for me.  I feel like they want me to live a little more so I’ll see that hope is actually pretty much one of the main things that keeps normal people going. 

So when I say out loud that I think hope is stupid, people want to challenge that.  I think that’s good.  I don’t have the answers about hope, so people pushing back makes me think.

I will say this for sure: hope has let me down.  Hard.  You can hope something with every single cell of your being and you know how much it matters?  Zero percent. 

After recent, intense hope-dashing, I now feel a physical reaction to the word “hope.” I have to pull on the reins of my eyeballs to stop them from rolling.  I feel my stomach lurch.  Hope seems like the stupidest thing in the world to me right now. 

I have some reasons for that, but it’s still weird to me.  Why does “hope” do that to me, but “faith” doesn’t?  How are those things alike?  And where does “trust” fit in?  What about “expectation”? 

These are some of my salad thoughts.

At any rate, I’ve learned that a visceral reaction probably means I need to pay attention to something there, so I’m going to press into “hope” a little bit more.  I’m guessing the creators of Advent probably intended some hope along with the waiting, so it makes more sense than Job does, that’s for sure.  In fact, now that I think about it, I think one of the candles on the Advent wreath might actually be the candle for hope. Puke.