"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)
