4 ms·

It's not about who has or had it the hardest. It's about living with hope things'll get better.

by johnchristopher 8y ago

toomuchtodo 8y ago
These suicides are evidence of the exhaustion of hope. So how do you provide hope again?
- mistermann 8y ago
  Giving some plausible reason to have hope is a good place to start. "It always works out" seems to be enough for many people (typically, those for whom it has worked out), but for those who know that, actually, no, it doesn't "always work out", an actually plausible reason is often required. And for others, even that isn't enough.
  - krageon 8y ago
    The whole point of hope is that it doesn't have a plausible reason. That's what makes it hope and not knowledge. If you already know things will get better, you do not need to hope they will, you can just wait for it to happen.
    - mistermann 8y ago
      > The whole point of hope is that it doesn't have a plausible reason. That's what makes it hope and not knowledge. This seems a bit coarse. Working hard to move from the lower class to solidly middle class is not guaranteed, so the pursuit of that is based on both hope and knowledge. However, if the statistical likelihood of this move begins decreasing, and simultaneously the rates of people moving in the opposite direction is also rising, one could argue that a natural response would be for "hope" levels to decrease.
      - krageon 8y ago
        By this reasoning, someone in a historically war-torn country (there are a few, you can imagine it's any one of them) should not hope for a peaceful time at some point. I think this is a good example of a case where hope does indeed work, even though the thing you hope for is statistically unlikely.
        mistermann 8y ago
        More accurately, by this reasoning, someone in a war torn country might be expected to have lower hope levels than someone in that same country before it became war torn. For some people, hope is always possible, but when things are going backwards, a lot of people have trouble maintaining hope.

It's not about who has or had it the hardest. It's about living with hope things'll get better.

toomuchtodo 8y ago

These suicides are evidence of the exhaustion of hope. So how do you provide hope again?

mistermann 8y ago
Giving some plausible reason to have hope is a good place to start. "It always works out" seems to be enough for many people (typically, those for whom it has worked out), but for those who know that, actually, no, it doesn't "always work out", an actually plausible reason is often required. And for others, even that isn't enough.
- krageon 8y ago
  The whole point of hope is that it doesn't have a plausible reason. That's what makes it hope and not knowledge. If you already know things will get better, you do not need to hope they will, you can just wait for it to happen.
  - mistermann 8y ago
    > The whole point of hope is that it doesn't have a plausible reason. That's what makes it hope and not knowledge. This seems a bit coarse. Working hard to move from the lower class to solidly middle class is not guaranteed, so the pursuit of that is based on both hope and knowledge. However, if the statistical likelihood of this move begins decreasing, and simultaneously the rates of people moving in the opposite direction is also rising, one could argue that a natural response would be for "hope" levels to decrease.
    - krageon 8y ago
      By this reasoning, someone in a historically war-torn country (there are a few, you can imagine it's any one of them) should not hope for a peaceful time at some point. I think this is a good example of a case where hope does indeed work, even though the thing you hope for is statistically unlikely.
      - mistermann 8y ago
        More accurately, by this reasoning, someone in a war torn country might be expected to have lower hope levels than someone in that same country before it became war torn. For some people, hope is always possible, but when things are going backwards, a lot of people have trouble maintaining hope.