All I Want Is Everything.
Life is a hypocrite if I can’t dance the way it moves me.
~ Christopher Fry
Doisneau–La Douche A Raiseux, 1949 / www.robertdoisneau.com
They teach us many things in this small, bluish world we’ve come to love.
In school you learn the Who, the Where and When. The How, you learn later from life. The Why escapes you for the most part. And when you finally get an idea, you realize it’s just another room in a house that’s no longer yours. Your life, an enchanted city with too many buildings. What was your name, again?
But I’m more interested in the unlikely What—that terrifying pulse under your skin, the silent breath that whispers “everything is” or “anything can be”. The only constant.
There’s one motor, one murmur common to all ways of life; no less necessary than oxygen and no more optimistic than sunshine. Some call it hope.
As skeletal and central as hope seems to be—the blueprint of life, in this case—it’s a painful paradox to find armed guards at the doors of everything you dare to dream or do.
When you have to justify and defend imagination but you don’t need to excuse yourself from apathy or ignorance, there’s something wrong with the world; with any world.
There are all kinds of antidotes to hope. They sell them at pharmacies; at supermarkets, at every corner of every street, on your TV screen, in magazines… They even sell them in your head—that army of Nos always defending its territory.
Hush. Don’t dare to hope out loud. It’s too good to be true. It’s improbable, absurd, ridiculous… How arrogant of you to want it all.
We’ve accidentally turned happiness into a cliché and cynicism into a virtue. If Yes is a gate that each of us has to cross through in order to exist, why is it not-recommended to open it?
What came first, the door or the key?
Hey You, be careful what you ask for…
You might just get it.
The rules of hope are simple: nothing real can be utterly destroyed, and nothing unreal can be threatened. If the longing in us is such a dangerous business that someone or something is constantly trying to silence it, maybe it’s because it leads to a real map of life’s treasures—the kind of map only the heart can read.
The Kid
Possibility is what makes your cells multiply and the idea of you, turn into fact.
As Gay Hendricks so brilliantly put it: “We are good times waiting to happen.”
I’d add that we’re already happening.
I think life is synonymous with hope. And if we shouldn’t unplug ourselves from it, then we might as well stop resisting it.
The lights are always on, but you should check your eyes, says the Hope doctor. If open, they might see the things they want; and want the things they need; and dare to ask out loud without disliking the sound of your own voice… and to receive.
Because what if life is (essentially) dreaming; and you and I, just improbable dreams come true?
So, hurry up, Heart and repeat with me. Let’s memorize these lines before they send the guards:
Hope is the thing with feathers,
That perches in the soul.
And sings the tune without the words.
And never stops at all.~ Emily Dickinson
Incorrect source, offensive, or found a typo? Or do you want to write for Elephant?
Andréa Balt is an unfinished book, garage philosopher, eco maniac, art nut & other unrealistic & impractical things on a bike. She has a BA in Communication, an MFA in Creative Writing & she's a certified Nutrition Junkie. You can connect with her via Facebook, Twitter & Pinterest, or pay her a visit at Rebelle Époque, her art & writing blog, where she might fetch you a virtual cup of word-tea. She also makes daily, green rebellion at Rebelle Wellness and she recently co-created Rebelle Society, a creatively maladjusted, imaginary country, occupied by the art of being alive. Rebelle?
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Braja Sorensen
Lost & Found in India
Editor, Elephant Spirituality
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Always inspired by your writing, I wait at the edge of my seat every day for your new post. <3
Phoenix Wedding Photographer
Aww, that's lovely. Thanks for the smile.
…i think that was a love heart
LOL. Not in love with the keyboard love. But loving back with words.
Thanks Braja!
…i know, just playing
So beautiful Andrea. Thank you
Thanks Ben! Catching up with your latest today. Self-esteem article first in line. Cheers!
Love your writing. This plants such fun playfulness in my soul and now my eyes sparkle with mischief. Thanks!
A quote from Pema Chodron: " In Tibetan, there is an interesting word: ye tang che. It describes an experience of complete hopelessness, of completely giving up hope. This is an important point. This is the beginning of the beginning. Without giving up hope that there is somewhere better to be, that there is someone better to be, we will never relax with where or who we are."
The source of all misery is the desire for circumstances to be different than they are. Isn't that what hope is?
Hey Stig, I think we’re talking about two different things here. I do agree with Pema Chodron in but I see both ideas as complimentary, rather than opposite. I’m not talking about hope as a feeling in this piece but about hope as an impulse, as a life-force, in a very basic & essential aspect.
We’re all dying and living at once, still and moving; a part dies and another is born, constantly. This is the essence of change and change is at the core of every action that takes place in the universe, including our feelings (including hopelessness).
So yes, present contentment is a must when it comes to feelings; but so is content movement when it comes to actions; without which there’d be no presence because that same presence is in essence, happening. There’s place for the hopelessness only inasmuch as there’s some place for hope, if only that hope that keeps the hopelessness alive.
There can’t be any action, any life, without the impulse for movement (happening at all levels of existence – highest & more personal or lowest/cellular and as such very basic & impersonal) the “desire” for something that is not yet there. I don’t mean desire with a negative, superficial & distracting connotation – the discontentment of “not having”, but desire in its deepest form & most basic freedom, more motivational, that which is –“synonymous with life”– just another way of saying ‘present’; the part that never stops, the heartbeat.
So, real hope is not a feeling – because it’d be ephemeral and perhaps misguided, like most feelings, since feelings are based on perception and our perception is equivocal by nature. In this case I welcome hopelessness.
But when contemplated beyond feelings, hope is more like a state of affairs, the life force that brings “you” into existence – the constant creative impulse of life; the universal motor that’s always moving forward; what makes your thoughts take the leap from idea into facts, or one cell divide and create two; a new life-form being born; a seed sprouting, the concept of growth, etc…
And now I’m just rambling too much.
I get what you are saying, but I think that referring to the "force" or "state of affairs" that you describe as hope is very misleading.
Hope implies change or growth, which implies time, which is not real in the absolute sense. There is only this moment, which is essentially unchanging.
To me hope is not in opposition to hopelessness; it is inversely proportional to acceptance, and acceptance is integral to the experience of unity that is bliss.
But I think we're saying the same thing with different words. I said "There’s place for the hopelessness only inasmuch as there’s some place for hope, if only that hope that keeps the hopelessness alive."
Just like you, I don't see hope as an opposite of hopelessness but complimentary, a yin & yang thing. It's what I'm trying to say in the comment & article. I'm trying to portray it not as a feeling but as a natural principle that drives change. It's a concept general enough for more than one interpretation.
Though I agree to disagree, I think our apparent disagreement only comes down to our choice of words…
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I'm going to go with Pema on this one: "Abandon hope."
(But I love your lovely words anyway xoxox)
Oh, I didn't mean it in the Pema sense, but a wider, more basic & general sense. I explained this in the comments above. Still, happy that you luv me anyway. XOXO
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Thanks for your input Nathan!
I share your opinion and based this definition of hope not on feeling but on a more elemental expression of life and change, not really a feeling but an action. I commented more in detail above. (Click on replies)
Also, here's the link to the subscription page. Let me know if you still have trouble and I'll look into it. http://www.elephantjournal.com/member/ This is what you meant by "subscribe", right? If not, I highly recommend it – you get unlimited access to all elephant articles and you also get to support indie media. What more could you possibly ask for?