~ All hope abandon, ye who enter in.
Dante Alighieri, The
Divine Comedy: Inferno, Canto III: The Gate of Hell, line 9.
I’m on a
deadline and I don’t have “writers block”.
Frankly, ‘writers block’ would be an upgrade. I’m standing at the gates of deadline hell
and I’ve got… I’ve got… nothing. Nada. Not a single idea. I’ve gone out for runs waiting for the ideas
to sally forth and ring the doorbell in my mind. But the stress of work, a son applying to
college, a presidential election, and leaves that fall uncollected on my yard
like unmelting lake-effect snow has
crowded out any space for creative thought.
I’m hanging on a single thread of something that propels me out of bed
every morning: Hope. However, I’m not in the Divine Comedy: I’m in the longest checkout line in the
longest circle in hell. And it’s not
moving. I need to find inspiration.
~ But what is Hope? Nothing but the paint on the face of Existence. The
least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot
we have got hold of.
Lord Byron, letter to
Thomas Moore
Clearly,
this isn’t it. Lord Byron was in the
mother-of-all foul moods when he wrote Thomas Moore, who – rumor had it – owed
him money. Hope is supposed to inspire
us, to provide us a life raft when all else is lost. If Lord Byron hadn’t become dust a long time
ago, I’d give him the following advice: Get a prescription for Prozac, then promptly
double up on it. ‘Paint on the face of
existence’… ‘hollow-cheeked harlot’ …
Can’t imagine what special brand of crazy cheer his Christmas cards must have
contained. Byron is not inspiring
me.
~ Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.
Sir Francis Bacon,
Apophthegms (1624), No. 36.
Are we at
all surprised that a guy named BACON would be the head cheerleader for hope as
a breakfast food? These Brits are
completely transparent. I need some
help: I’ve got nothing on the page but a
bitter Italian, a depressed poet, and the English version of Jimmy Dean.
~ He that lives upon hope will die fasting.
Benjamin
Franklin
I’m pretty
sure Ben Franklin never had a deadline.
Trying to coax creative thought from behind the locked vault in my head
has been a mighty task. Usually I go for
a run and the ideas fall into place during the course of the course, but this
month there haven’t been enough miles in the road. I hope against hope and rage against these
‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’, and wonder if William Shakespeare
ever had writers block. My muse has
abandoned me.
~ Hope is a waking dream.
Aristotle
I find hope
takes so many forms. When doing the math
to fund another college education, I hope
I can afford it. I hope the economy turns around. When I go for a run in the morning, I hope I feel good. When my dishwasher broke the Tuesday before
Thanksgiving, I had hope I could get an appointment before Thursday, which is
frankly daft. When I stood in line to
vote in the recent election, hope
took the form of a line that snaked out the polling place and down the
sidewalk. There was so much collective
hope, but half that line woke up the next day without it, while the other half
was living the dream: as good an example of a zero-sum game as ever. When I
proof-read an email a colleague has written I hope I don’t see the word “hope” because – as we’ve all learned –
“Hope” is not an appropriate business strategy.
It is – however – perfectly sound for writing an article. At least that’s what I’ve told my
editor. I feel hope at the start of every football season – which is a mighty
thing for a lifelong fan of the Buffalo Bills.
After decades, to still believe, that truly is a waking dream. Or lunacy; I’m still deciding which.
~ Hope is patience with the lamp lit.
Tertullian
I have no idea
who Tertullian was, but I love the sentiment.
It’s like he’s describing Hope as the “Motel 6” of the philosophical
realm, but with better decorating and a much better breakfast (see: Bacon, Sir
Francis.) I don’t know about hope – what
it really is. Is it a waking dream, a
thing with feathers, springs eternal, or
the only universal liar who never loses its reputation for veracity? Nietzsche, never the eternal optimist,
thought “In reality, hope is the worst
of all evils, because it prolongs man's torments.” But some unknown author countered “When the
world says, ‘Give up,’ Hope whispers, ‘Try it one more time.’” Hope is like the run: One more time, one more
line, one more step, one more mile.
Hope runs on.
