Our Inheritance(2): A Capacity to Restore Hope

In the last article, we explored some of the reasons why the Doomsday Clock is at 90 seconds to midnight and why our current world is pretty scary when you think about it.

(For those who are interested, the clock was updated on January 24 and remains at 90 seconds to midnight.) 

I spoke to several people and got feedback on the article. 

Many reported that while they really liked it and found it informative, they were left with a feeling of anxiety.

It wasn’t my intent to leave people worse off.

This reaction made me reconsider the order in which I am writing these articles.

I next wanted to explore some of the whys behind our scary world and focus our attention on possible things we can do to better it.

But I don’t want it to be a mental exercise, one amounting to nothing more than good vibes and intellectual masturbation.

There’s already too much of that going around these days…

At risk of promising said intellectual masturbation, I will eventually write that article.

(Also, in case you were worried, I promise not to use the word masturbation again.)

Instead, I think we should discuss something far more essential.

Something that any conversation about the betterment of the world requires.

Without it, all of these articles, or any discussion of this sort degrades into the above-mentioned term which I have promised to not use. 

This is hope.

An age devoid of hope is not new to human history.

However, I believe hopelessness permeates our time in a unique way.

We are living in a time where humanity is at its most technologically, materially, and intellectually well-equipped.

Our populations are the most widely educated than ever has been seen.

Yet, most of us do not feel empowered to tackle the challenges of our age.

Not only do we feel disempowered, we feel like we can do nothing but watch as these challenges wreak havoc.

In fairness, this does have something to do with how large the challenges are.

As discussed in the previous article we live in a world that seems to be edging daily towards catastrophe and war.

The effects of climate change continue to loom over us.

Our leaders, somehow always sounding out of touch, who have the power to do things, seem either unwilling to undertake the required changes or worse, are unable to.

The rich are not only getting richer- they’re competing with each other to launch weird-looking spaceships, investing in immortality, and building massive bunkers.

Sometimes it seems like they are no longer investing in what is, but in escape and backup plans that leave us behind and save themselves.

It's like we’re living in some weird, cartoonish, dystopian movie.

This being said, to narrow our discussion, I want to focus on one particular feature of our time.

In this kind of world, it is common enough to hear people saying they don’t want to have kids.

The reason is that they think the world is becoming increasingly horrible, and it’s only a mercy to not bring children into such an existence.

I am extremely sympathetic to this.

I understand why people believe this.

But I think this is fundamentally wrong.

I think it is wrong because it is a mindset utterly devoid of hope.

Alfonso Cuaron’s movie “Children of Men” (2006) presents us with a world where for some unknown reason, the whole human race has gone sterile. 

No one is capable of having kids.

There are some kids left from when people could have them, but that was some time back.

Cuaron shows us that a civilization without people having children is a one with no future.

He shows us that a civilization with no future is a civilization that can only decay.

Many of the narratives we use to justify our lives simply fall away without a belief in the future.

In the movie, the characters just live in a depressive slump, waiting to die, and eventually, for the world to die with them.

(I won’t spoil the rest of the film so end of discussion here.)

Children are the bridge to the future, all its potential wrapped up right before our eyes in a little person. 

Children are the ultimate symbols of hope.

To be clear, I’m not trying to advocate for increasing the birth rate in this article or that everyone needs to have children.

You do you booboo.

What I’m trying to get at is there is a societal malaise that seems to be spreading; refusing to have children is just a symptom, not the actual underlying issue.

This issue is that we are as a society, giving up on hope itself.
 

And I think to give up on hope, in so far as we can at least hope for a better future, however abstract, is wrong. 

It erodes what I personally believe is what makes humans noble, brilliant, fantastic beings, despite all of our stumblings, mistakes, and myriad failings.

That despite all we’ve done, all we’ll probably do, that we CAN build a beautiful world where we can “make this life free and beautiful”.

And a civilization without hope is one that is sick, and will just increase problems, not decrease them.

Now, I’m aware it's not so easy to just stand up, clap your hands, and ta-daa, you have hope.

Like anything, it has to be grown, developed, and protected.

And I’m not going to try to prescribe how you should develop your own.

But perhaps the following train of thought may spark the fire, increase your capacity to restore your own hope:

To be absolutely devoid of hope you have to deliberately ignore how far humanity has come.

You have to forget that we live in a world full of once-impossible things.

How many things do we take for granted in our daily lives, that in the past, were considered not only impossible but magical?

How long ago was it that the idea of humans flying in the sky like birds was a dream too fantastical and absurd to consider?

Yet, millions of people soar in the skies every day, for nothing more than just having a vacation.

We live in a world, where instantaneous global communication is possible where before they had to send letters across thousands of miles, or at best, use pigeons.

Pigeons.

You know what else was impossible?

Light bulbs.

Yet we flick them on and off every day without a second thought of the miracle they once presented.

Thomas Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at the light bulb.

It was something never seen before.

To the world at large, it was impossible.

Until the one attempt that meant it wasn’t.
 
What if it is exactly the same for peace?

A better future?

A better us? 

So what if we’ve failed a thousand times, ten thousand times? We only need to succeed once.

Continuing to be open to that one-in-a-thousand chance, to be ready to pursue it, that is all hope needs to be.

And you know what? Maybe we will fail, but in my humble opinion the possibility that hope presents us with, is worth failing for.

In my mind, we have no option but to hope.

Because if the chance of peace and a better world is .001% we have to pursue that possibility with as much as we can give.

Because choosing to believe that it’s impossible, choosing not to try, choosing to give up on hope…

Well, that makes our chances a definite 0.00%.

I feel like I can keep rambling about this all day.

However, I won’t.

Instead, I’m going to leave you with a quote from a bit of random source.

In Lord of the Rings, the Two Towers, when everything seems so dark, so devoid of hope, with despair surrounding them at every corner, Samwise Gamgee gives Frodo a speech that always restores my desire to hope:

Sam:

It’s all wrong.

By rights we shouldn’t even be here.

But we are.

It’s like in the great stories Mr. Frodo.

The ones that really mattered.

Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end.

Because how could the end be happy?

How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened?

But in the end, it’s only a passing thing… this shadow.

Even darkness must pass.
A new day will come.

And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.

Those were the stories that stayed with you…

That meant something.

Even if you were too small to understand why.

But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand…

I know now.

Folks in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only didn’t.

Because they were holding on to something…

Frodo:

What are we holding on to, Sam?

Sam:

That there’s some good in this world, Mr Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.

(Link to clip of speech)

The next articles will get back to a more concrete and detailed analysis of what is going on in the world today, discuss why we are in this situation, and explore the meaning and possibility of peace.