Hope? Nope.
Like many others, I find it hard to be hopeful these days. This isn’t the same as feeling positive, for when I reflect upon the creature comforts I currently experience and the string of successes I’ve enjoyed, negativity would seem like a misanthropic indulgence. So yes, at the strictly personal level I have little cause for complaint. Despite the inconveniences of Covid and the slow accumulation of losses (about which I’ve previously written), I have much to be grateful for.
Hope, on the other hand, is a sentiment I struggle to maintain. I’m not talking about myself here. At age seventy-one, I’m pretty much past needing hope in order to get out of bed in the morning. I suppose I take for granted that the world won’t crack wide open before the curtain closes on my own life, whether that happens five or twenty-five years from now. Should a sudden shift in my own fortunes occur? Well, I’ve communed with enough men, women and children who suffered an unexpected or premature exit to have also made my peace with both the precariousness and capriciousness of life. No need to harbor false illusions.
Where I really could use some hope, though, is when I come to consider the world without me (to paraphrase Alan Weisman’s best-selling 2007 book). I’ve lived with a dystopian vision of the future for quite some time now, beginning with books like “The Population Bomb” and “The Limits to Growth” that were part of my undergraduate reading assignments a half-century ago. And while many of the Malthusian predictions that made household names of Paul Ehrlich and Lester Brown have yet to be born out, the writing is still on the wall in clear, stark letters. Only the timing, and not the theses themselves, was wrong.
Humankind’s challenges moving forward are daunting and, I’m afraid, still escalating. To the prospect of severe environmental and ecological disruption within the next half-century, we now have several other accelerating crises to deal with: socially destabilizing economic inequality; widespread disenchantment with democratic systems and norms; a world in which truth itself has become alarmingly fungible; and, of course, the very real prospect of even more virulent pandemics in the years to come. Again, I probably will not live long enough to experience the culmination of these disorienting trends. But my wife and I have a son who, along with several billion others, is only a fraction of our age and is thus fated to bear the full brunt of these emerging realities. Then there is the rest of the sentient world, now in the throes of a human-caused mass extinction about which we, the perpetrators, seem unwilling or unable to mitigate.
I admit that its tempting at times to adopt the perspective of Martin, a world-weary character Voltaire introduces in his novel “Candide.” This scholar, the author writes, “was firmly persuaded that man is equally bad off anywhere… (and) was born to live in a convulsion of anxiety or the lethargy of boredom.” And, of course, there was the Wisconsin State Senator who, as the Northwood’s vast white pine forests were being clearcut into near oblivion, replied to a question about saving a few of these majestic trees for posterity with a derisive snort: “What’s posterity ever done for me?”
But while I am pessimistic about the human prospect, I do try to resist Martin’s cynical counsel of despair. I still recognize the importance of donating blood on a regular basis, as well as lending support to food pantries and homeless shelters. Preservation of natural habitat is critical to the survival of threatened species, so I make provision for local land trusts. During election cycles I stump for progressive office seekers, even though in many cases their prospects aren’t particularly bright. Yes, in these perilous times its wise to keep one’s expectations in check, but there is still good to be done.
Is there a place here for hope? I don’t really know. Mostly I lean into the principle of “as if.” Although the future may look grim, we should strive to live and to act “as if” it were possible to make a difference. When feelings of futility rise up and threaten to pull us down, let’s be reminded of Dr. Who’s rejoinder to an adversary who questioned his power to change the world: “Maybe not,” our hero declared with a smile, “but I just may be able to tweak it a little.”
Admittedly, one small person puttering about on the edges won’t have much of an impact. But I have found that the puttering itself is a potent antidote for despair. And, if more people embraced the wisdom of “as if” there might be a future to look forward to after all.
