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2049

Abstract

when everything is fucked up, hope is the last thing life can take out of me’, you think.This keeps you going. Also, the faith in things turning around better eventually, gives you confidence. You extrapolate all the evidence from past knock-downs, all the moments you stood up again. Nothing will be life-threateningly irreversible, you think. There has often been evidence for hope — an opaque outlook, a light in the fog and you know there is a direction to walk towards.Now, you are struggling, yet with a strong belief in the continuous trajectory of life’s course. There are hardly any abrupt events because you believe that all these events are meaningfully interconnected. Ther is no ‘suddenly-my-life-changed’, you think.You believe in a sense of an organic passage of life with its micro-disruptions you almost don’t perceive because you don’t want to go through life like a paranoid piece of ghost interpreting all the microscopic jumps.But then, there is this moment: Gravity turns around, you lose your identity for a few seconds and every moment afterwards is just an endless echo of the lost orientation — I called this a surprising glitch in the meaning of my existence when I was faced with a scene, grotesque and alien to my expectations, to my hopes: a trauma.A trauma is indeed an abrupt and sudden change irreversibly turning everything upside down: Your entire life, all your outlook — it’s not the same as it was. It can be physical or mental. It is the very realization the next day after your leg is amputated. You are gazing into the void and you know you are not going to get back that leg again.I started looking for evidence. There was none; not even a slim slice of reliable evidence that one day everything is going to be okay. And I wish I would not write down all this dark piece of me — it feels terrifying. Writing down all this feels like putting out a loaded gun into the public for any suicidal soul

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to use.But then, I wonder: is this not what we feel? Isn’t it time to admit that no solace in the world can fill even the margins of this hole? I say, drop the false hopes.Hope is the worst of demons and malignancies if it is an invalid hope: An invalid or false hope is based on false or non-existing evidence and rationale. A false hope is malignant if expressed as mere optimism. This kind of hope is deemed to feed on the soul alive.<h1 id="0ccd">What to cling on, then?</h1>It’s already a step ahead to trust in what not to cling onto. We have already carried on with this body of pain past all those who parted, who had to go separate ways, who do not owe us any salvation. All those we once had put all our hopes into; Whom we had dreamt along; Past all those who decided to leave us after knotting all our hopes onto the eternal-looking stars in the sky; Past all those who risked hurting us: hurting me and themselves. But you need to remember, my friend: There is no Karma.These days, I wonder: did my hope make it out of Pandora’s box? Then I realize that I am sitting behind my desk, few clicks and two minutes apart from my next teams call in the office. Life goes on as if nothing has happened.These days, I wonder: Am I already integrating the trauma? Do I contain the pain or do I still spill parts of it on my desk, in the train, under my blanket? I do spill the tears and the powerlessness all over the place and yet with red eyes half-open, I carry on one more day, thinking there is no way I cling on again onto this little demon.And the rule is: Survive another day. Carry on this body of pain. Carry her home, feed her, put her to sleep. Carry on one more day, because these are things that need to be done — without any discussion, without debates, without lingering.I Find a corner. It’s going to be a permanently dark room within my soul: There, I may integrate, without hope.</article></body>

On the Irreversibility of Hope

What to cling on when everything is lost?

Pandora was a goddess, a messenger, sent by Greek Gods to bring companionship to men. Pandora’s message was a box supposed to be remained unopened. Men did not pay any respect and opened the box.

All demons and catastrophies rushed escaping the opened box. Only one demon remained at the bottom of Pandora’s box: Hope.

There are many interpretations of the nature of the last monster at the bottom of Pandora’s box — a creature, seemingly neither angel nor demon, ashamed, frightened but prepared and gazing into your eyes with her big mysterious eyes. It is the abyss in her eyes that is gazing back into you.

DE: “Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, daß er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird […] Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein.”

EN: “Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster […] for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.”

― Friedrich W. Nietzsche

Hope is the abyss you gaze into when fighting monsters and the courage you fathom out of the void inside when all that fighting is unbearably exhausting; That very courage is nourished by hope — an ultimate sense of liberty you count on: ‘Well, when everything is fucked up, hope is the last thing life can take out of me’, you think.

This keeps you going. Also, the faith in things turning around better eventually, gives you confidence. You extrapolate all the evidence from past knock-downs, all the moments you stood up again. Nothing will be life-threateningly irreversible, you think. There has often been evidence for hope — an opaque outlook, a light in the fog and you know there is a direction to walk towards.

Now, you are struggling, yet with a strong belief in the continuous trajectory of life’s course. There are hardly any abrupt events because you believe that all these events are meaningfully interconnected. Ther is no ‘suddenly-my-life-changed’, you think.

You believe in a sense of an organic passage of life with its micro-disruptions you almost don’t perceive because you don’t want to go through life like a paranoid piece of ghost interpreting all the microscopic jumps.

But then, there is this moment: Gravity turns around, you lose your identity for a few seconds and every moment afterwards is just an endless echo of the lost orientation — I called this a surprising glitch in the meaning of my existence when I was faced with a scene, grotesque and alien to my expectations, to my hopes: a trauma.

A trauma is indeed an abrupt and sudden change irreversibly turning everything upside down: Your entire life, all your outlook — it’s not the same as it was. It can be physical or mental. It is the very realization the next day after your leg is amputated. You are gazing into the void and you know you are not going to get back that leg again.

I started looking for evidence. There was none; not even a slim slice of reliable evidence that one day everything is going to be okay. And I wish I would not write down all this dark piece of me — it feels terrifying. Writing down all this feels like putting out a loaded gun into the public for any suicidal soul to use.

But then, I wonder: is this not what we feel? Isn’t it time to admit that no solace in the world can fill even the margins of this hole? I say, drop the false hopes.

Hope is the worst of demons and malignancies if it is an invalid hope: An invalid or false hope is based on false or non-existing evidence and rationale. A false hope is malignant if expressed as mere optimism. This kind of hope is deemed to feed on the soul alive.

What to cling on, then?

It’s already a step ahead to trust in what not to cling onto. We have already carried on with this body of pain past all those who parted, who had to go separate ways, who do not owe us any salvation. All those we once had put all our hopes into; Whom we had dreamt along; Past all those who decided to leave us after knotting all our hopes onto the eternal-looking stars in the sky; Past all those who risked hurting us: hurting me and themselves. But you need to remember, my friend: There is no Karma.

These days, I wonder: did my hope make it out of Pandora’s box? Then I realize that I am sitting behind my desk, few clicks and two minutes apart from my next teams call in the office. Life goes on as if nothing has happened.

These days, I wonder: Am I already integrating the trauma? Do I contain the pain or do I still spill parts of it on my desk, in the train, under my blanket? I do spill the tears and the powerlessness all over the place and yet with red eyes half-open, I carry on one more day, thinking there is no way I cling on again onto this little demon.

And the rule is: Survive another day. Carry on this body of pain. Carry her home, feed her, put her to sleep. Carry on one more day, because these are things that need to be done — without any discussion, without debates, without lingering.

I Find a corner. It’s going to be a permanently dark room within my soul: There, I may integrate, without hope.