A thing called Hope

"Hope. It is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness." (The Architect, Matrix Reloaded)

While I was living through the aftermath of a breakup, which was needless to say an emotionally scarring experience, I had a couple of people recommend that I read Eat, Pray, Love - possibly a good avenue to take my mind off things and also perhaps pick up a thing or two from Elizabeth Gilbert. The book's popularity spiked with the release of the movie late last year and after hearing countless mentions of it, including one from Koothrappali (The Big Bang Theory reference), I thought I'd give the book a go - why not.

Despite the many positive reviews and testaments of how the book changed people's lives, I must say I didn't care much for it. Don't get me wrong - I think it's great for Gilbert to have had gone through what she went through in the beginning and by the end of her journey, managed to "find herself" again. However, others (like me) don't have the same luxury of going through eat, pray, love periods in Italy, India, and Bali. I couldn't have packed up my bags, leave everything behind, and go anywhere let alone go on "a journey of self discovery". I had no choice - I was smacked right in the middle of 2nd semester. I had to live through what I did exactly where I was.

In the month that followed, I've never been more acutely aware how cruel hope can be when it's the only thing I had to hold onto (directly relating to the relationship/breakup), the only thing I had left at my lowest point. What do you do when your last beacon of hope is hope?

"In reality, hope is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs man's torments." (Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human)

On hindsight (or to anyone looking in) that may seem like a stretch and could be construed as blowing it "over the top" but I certainly did not think so then, I couldn't have thought so then. After it happened, I hoped that it wasn't permanent, that he would want to make it work and that he would have cared enough about me to not let it all slipped away. It was hope that tied me to him for as long as my mind would refuse to simply let it go. It was literally the only thing that was left - hope. I felt like a drowning man clutching on a straw. Although I knew it was fruitless, although I knew that it wouldn't make a difference of me trying to reason things out, I still hoped. It was then I faced hope with a bitter resentment because I knew that while it was the only thing that I had left to cling to, all the hope in the world couldn't change what's happened.

"Hope is the only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity." (Robert G. Ingersoll)

Sometime later, I chanced on another book, "Annexed" (Sharon Dogar) - a historical fiction based on Anne Frank's diary. It wasn't until 2 months later that I finally got my hands on "The Diary of a Young Girl" (Anne Frank).

These 2 books I would call a life-changing. "Annexed" and "The Diary of a Young Girl" delved me into a another world, into a different time. It made me see and realise how much we take for granted, even the simplest and littlest things like running around under the sun and the ability to step outside for a breath of fresh air.

"An empty day, though clear and bright,
Is just as dark as any night." (Anne Frank)

"Hope is putting faith to work when doubting would be easier." (Author Unknown)

It would have been easy to have let thoughts of doubts and an unhappy ending consume the lives of those living in the secret annex but Anne (and everyone around her) was very hopeful until the very end. They had no control of what was happening and all they could do was get on with their lives as normally as they could while in hiding, hope that the war would come to an end and that they'll be free again. Right until the end, the residents of the secret annex were hopeful and they clung on that hope of freedom. They didn't survive to see the end of the war (except for Otto Frank) but hope (on top of everything else) kept them alive for the duration that they remain hidden.

"Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark." (George Iles)

When I read these 2 books, I saw life in a different perspective and I realised that there were things far larger than us, how simple we have it now. It was then the monstrous weight of the heartbreak slowly begin to fade - such a thing felt somewhat insignificant while I was reading about the 8 lives of the secret annex.

"Hope, deceitful as it is, serves at least to lead us to the end of our lives by an agreeable route." (Francois Duc de La Rochefoucauld)

HOPE

We cling to it in our lowest moments and when we have nothing left.
We turn to it when we want things to go well, whether it's something in our control (outcome of an exam - depending how well prepared you are) or not (a war).
It gives rise to a dispirited nation. When the world says, "Give up," hope whispers, "Try one more time."

"Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wit and watch and work; You don't give up." (Anne Lamott)

"What if..."

24th December - Christmas Eve. Funny how I couldn't have been further away from where I was a year ago today and yet still be in the same place. Yet another mention of how much things change in a year. Nevertheless, I'm here now.

If there was one thing I'd want for Christmas (not necessarily Christmas - anytime would be good seeing that this is something I've been thinking about for a long time) is a device that shows the different outcomes to questions of "what if" (like the What-If Machine from Futurama). 

Wouldn't it be interesting if we could see how different our lives would be had we chose a different path or what would the world be like if we did/didn't...or what if the world was different from how we know it to be like today? Telly (among other things) tells me that I'm not the first one to have thought such a thought (quite obviously).

The following list of shows all explore the different scenarios of "what if": Anthology of Interest I and Anthology of Interest II (Futurama) - "What if Fry hadn't fallen into the freezer-doodle and come to the future-jiggy?", "What if Bender (the robot) was human?"; Road to the Multiverse (Family Guy) - "What if Christianity never existed?"; Turn Left (Doctor Who) - "What if Donna never met the Doctor?"; The One That Could Have Been (Friends) - "What if Rachel had married Barry?"; It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie (The Muppets) - "What if Kermit (the frog) had not existed?"

The biggest "what if" I ponder on (like Kermit did in It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie) is, "What if I didn't exist?" 
I wonder how different would the world be. On the grand scheme of things - (dare I say) perhaps not much different. Perhaps. Did I, even if a little bit, make a difference to the world? I can imagine that the lives around me would be somewhat altered. For one thing, my sister wouldn't be living with me now (seeing that I don't exist). Would she be in Perth at all? If not Perth, then where and doing what? The same thing she's doing now? My uni mates would have gotten a different group member for their project. Would they have done worse/better on the assignment? The lives that I've touched and the people I've met, even if for the briefest of moment, I was a presence in their timeline. How much of a difference did I make?

Questions of "what if" based on choices or events that could have gone differently (chronologically ordered from my earliest memories to now):
1. What if dad had chosen to do his Masters in UK instead of US? - Would I be speaking in a British accent and be saying words/terms like "blimey" and "absolute tosh" more often? (not that I say them much/at all now)
2. What if I didn't skip a grade? (having gone straight to grade 5 from grade 3) - Would I still have gotten the opportunity to study Engineering in Australia after high school on my scholarship? Would I be studying something completely different? Would I be somewhere else entirely now?
3. What if I chose not to be a prefect in high school? - How different would my high school life have been? Would that choice have changed the person I am today?
4. What if I had gone to University of Melbourne instead of University of Western Australia? (like I wanted to) - I would have met different people, done different things, lived a different life. How different would that life have been like?
5. What if I chose to not have gone to event A/B/C and I've never met you, you, or you? 

Other questions of "what if's":
1. What if I had 2 siblings instead of just 1? What if I had an elder brother or a younger sister? What if I had both? What if I was a boy?
2. What if they've discovered electricity 100 years earlier?
3. What if the internet never existed? - Well, this blog wouldn't be around for one thing.
4. What if Steve Jobs never came up with the idea of Apple?
5. What if apes ruled the world?

It's an infinite list of what if's and such is life, many of the questions will go unanswered. Because such a device does not exist (yet - that I know of anyway), we can only wonder (until such a device comes along) of what would have been and could be and that's all we're left with - wonderment. 

Labels

Today I spoke to someone I haven't seen for nearly 4 months and for that someone to be a person I used to see every other day, 4 months can seem like an awfully long time. That got me to thinking - this time around it was 4 months but this could very possibly stretch into longer periods of time, an infinite period of time even. What if we never meet again? 10, 20, 40 years from now, will you remember me? And I, you?

"You don't have to be a label. You can just be Celastra."

"You never know. 20 years from now, you might only remember me as the girl that..."

Don't get me wrong - "label" is a terrible word for a person and I'm sure we don't make it a habit of putting people under "labels" but it's one of the ways our minds associate a face with a name - if we remember the name at all in the end that is.

Whether it's a good ("the smart one"), bad ("the one that got caught shoplifting"), or neutral ("the one with the short, brown hair") association, everyone will at some point of their life be associated with one, for lack of a better word, "label" or another and to different people, depending on the impression you've left, you'll be remembered in different ways.

Labels. What an odd word (for a person). I suppose it's not really label per say that I'm trying to get at - just the ways we're remembered. I wonder, how am I remembered? How are you?