H O P E

 Hi, good day, I am Dorothy Andrada from Section VV for Philo12. Of the seven thesis statements that I could have chosen for my finals, I chose this: 

        💡     Hope is the patient seeking of the light that cannot be seen nor experienced in                              moments of darkness. It is not optimism, vitalism, stoicism, and gnosticism                                   because it entails the constant decision to hope  and the temptation to constantly                          lose hope.

Let’s discuss this bit by bit, starting from the end. The temptation to constantly lose hope — why does this temptation exist? What is it about hope that makes it so difficult to grasp? For this, the answer is easy. It’s not about hope at all, but rather the circumstances surrounding it. Our reality is not always forgiving. It is not always merciful, it is not always just, and it is not always good. One only need look at the daily news to know this to be true. Who is to say that any of our fellow countrymen deserved the destructive onslaught of Typhoon Odette? And in the midst of the pandemic, did anyone deserve to lose their jobs, their homes, their loved ones? If there is one truth to our reality it is this: not even the most mundane joys in life are promised. Some days are just bad, not for any discernible reason aside from all the small disappointments stacking up. And boy, as life goes on, do the disappointments stack up. 

I know this because I, myself, have a tenuous relationship with hope. Yes, I admit, I want a bright and successful future ahead of me. I would love to be happy and content with wherever I end up. It would be nice if I didn’t have to worry so much about money or my career or my family. But that’s just the thing — I catch myself stating my dreams in these offhand ways, saying I want and I would love it and It would be nice if instead of I hope. Hope is difficult for me to even verbalize, much less hold on to. I imagine that I am not the only one with this problem. 

Perhaps that is why conscious effort is needed to foster hope: it entails the constant decision to hope, as the thesis statement says. Hope needs to be chosen every day, despite everything. It must be chosen despite a lack of knowledge that your hope will come true. It must be chosen despite the desire to feel entitled to the possibility that your hope will come true. It must be chosen despite the inability to logically determine that your hope will come true. It must be chosen despite the inclination to blindly, desperately believe that your hope must come true. Hope does not arrive to you effortlessly, no. As Marcel says: the more one is tempted to despair, the more is given the chance to respond in authentic hope. Hope is an action that you must consciously take, and in light of the harsh reality that we live in, choosing hope is unbelievably hard. 

Here is a secret. Despite being in a pre-med course, I have no interest in pursuing medicine at all. I am aware that perhaps my life would be easier if I did, and I know it would be lighter on my family if I was. Instead, I am taking my chances that a holistic school like Ateneo can provide me with an interdisciplinary enough background to pursue other kinds of careers. Careers that could actually lead me to a future that I’d enjoy working towards. I do not know yet what that career will be, but I am here because I hoped that this was my best shot of figuring it out. 

Hoped, with a d. Past tense. I’ll be the first to admit that I currently feel lost, without much sense of hope at all. More external considerations — political, economical, societal, geographical, financial — have gnawed on me. I’m slowly starting to realize that perhaps I’m asking for too much and, maybe, there isn’t much of a future to be hoped for anyway. At the very least, it’s hard to believe so. 

Hope is hard, because hope is not optimism. It is not waking up to a new day and thinking that things will finally turn out alright even if you do not lift a finger to actually assure that today will be better. Hope is not as thoughtless as that. 

Hope is hard, because hope is not vitalism. It is not a life force that which we solely depend on, and it does not come naturally to us just because we are alive. Hope is not as intrinsic as that. 

Hope is hard, because hope is not stoicism. It is not something that you can simply mentally logic yourself into having, nor is it emotionlessly objective enough for such a thing. Hope is not as reasonable as that. 

Hope is hard, because hope is not gnosticism. It is not God, or divine, or a blessing. It may not be physically tangible, but it is undeniably human in a way that we can find by ourselves even without any sacred, godly spark. Hope is not as transcendental as that. 

Hope is hard, but why must hope be hard? Why cannot hope be transcendental, or reasonable, or intrinsic, or thoughtless? Why cannot hope be easy? 

My answer to that is because hope does not come from a place that is easy. When the stars are aligned and the day is bright, one has no need for hope at all. In a situation like that, what would there be to hope for? No, hope is a conviction that rises from despair. The same dreary reality that makes it so difficult to hope is, paradoxically, also what creates hope itself. As Marcel says: the more one is tempted to despair, the more is given the chance to respond in authentic hope. It is despair that creates the need for hope. 

The light that cannot be seen nor experienced in moments of darkness. That darkness that this refers to is more personal, I feel — one that can often feel inescapable. It is a darkness that you eventually become resigned to. That nothingness, that despair, that bitterness of being held captive by a reality that, to you, feels incredibly unfair. In class, we discussed how that feeling of captivity can manifest in life: sickness, imprisonment, addiction, and poverty, among others. In the discussion boards, I described captivity like sitting idly in the hospital, waiting for a family member to die. The first time I experienced that, I was too young and I don’t think I really understood the gravity of what was happening. But I definitely remember feeling trapped; I didn’t know what was trapping me, all I knew was that I wanted to escape but I didn’t know how. 

All I could do was be patient. Be patient and choose to keep waiting. 

It is cold, when it finally happened. After a year, I had decided to answer my feelings of captivity by physically leaving my hometown. The anxiety and the fear that had been building up inside me, for the first time, felt small. I breathed in and I thought My time here is not forever and I felt open to whatever path this choice would lead me. If someone asked me what hope was, I’d describe that memory. It felt like looking forward. It felt like moving on. 

It feels important to mention that hope is not the light in the darkness. Rather, it is the patient seeking of that light. It is the understanding that the time will come for the darkness to leave, and that the darkness will not stay forever. Marcel calls hope — authentic hope — a response to despair; a response, by that meaning, an action. A seeking. A choice. Authentic hope is not found by chance neither found on a whim, especially not in a reality like ours. It is neither transcendental, nor reasonable, nor intrinsic, nor thoughtless, and it cannot be so if it is to have any lasting meaning on us. It is not easy, for there is no need for hope when things are easy. Instead, it is a constant balancing act of the despair that causes you to lose hope and the despair that causes you to discover hope. Hope is something that you nurture from within, despite — no, because of all the odds stacked against it. And more than anything, hope is something that takes time. The time may not come as soon as you wish, and it rarely ever does. But if you trust in hope’s arrival, hope will come in its own time if you are patient enough to continue seeking it out. 

It has been a decade since my experience with hope and here I am, in the darkness once again. Again, I am in wanting of escape from a future that I fear would make me feel trapped and unhappy. Hope feels as elusive as ever and yet I hope that, one day, I may trust in hope’s arrival once again. 

I have a tenuous relationship with hope. I’ll be the first to admit that I currently feel lost, without much sense of hope at all. But as I’ve learned from my classes and my own previous experience with despair, my time here is not forever, so long as I am patient with that time. For hope is the patient seeking of the light that cannot be seen nor experienced in moments of darkness. It is not optimism, vitalism, stoicism, and gnosticism because it entails the constant decision to hope and the temptation to constantly lose hope. 

Again, I am Dorothy Andrada from Section VV for Philo12. Of the seven thesis statements that I could have chosen for my finals, I choose to speak about hope. Thank you. 

11.19.2021