The Paradox of Hopelessness

Life is unpredictable, and moments of hardship are inevitable. Our culture have a tendency to expect cheerfulness and optimism when dealing with these times. “Cheer up,” they say; there is a bright side to everything; the cup is half-full!”

We feel guilt for being so down. We try to find hope in the words of coaches and books of self-help authors. They are indeed capable of giving a call to action that makes us feel an urge to improve our lives… However, the excitement of coach-induced optimism is a fleeting high, and ultimately, unsustainable.

Because there is an underlying paradox in hope and hopelessness. Being aware of this paradox is a good way to prevent its harmful effects.

Hope Is Frail

Hope is an emotion. It can be felt in the body, and it responds to the body’s condition. A person going through a hard time may feel hope as long as their body’s energy levels are stable; but, after one night of sleep deprivation, or a higher-than-average dose of psychiatric drugs, the body will lose its extra energy and the emotion of hope will quickly fade.

This keeps hopeless people stuck in a vicious cycle, where hopelessness drains their energy, and lack of energy increases the feeling of no hope and no way out.

Hope Through Faith Is Illogical

Many individuals are moved by logic, more than emotion. Logic requires arguments that can resist scrutiny, and a person with a logical mind will always scrutinize every argument and belief they hear. People used to logical thinking will even scrutinize their own beliefs and ideas on a daily basis.

Trying to give hope to a logical individual is a pointless task, when it is not sustained by decent logic. Someone may be down on their luck, unemployed, for example; you may tell them, “Have faith that you will find another job soon!” But, a logical mind may look at the labor market, and the economic recession; it may realize the lack of opportunities and the poor labor conditions of others; and think, “No, I won’t. There is no reason to believe that.”

And, against logical arguments, emotional “cheering up” is useless.

Hope Is Not Always Good

Hope is, sometimes, a terrible idea. It has the potential to chain people to abusive relationships, dead end jobs, and otherwise harmful situations; they don’t escape traps in life because they hope that things will improve.

An abusive marriage for example, is maintained by hope. A wife who is abused will always hope that, one day, her partner will change and treat her well. A worker may accept abusive and humiliating labor conditions, out of hope that, by working hard enough, one day he will climb up in the company, and improve his life.

People feel guilt for abandoning all hope, but in cases like this, abandoning hope is the only solution. The decisive destruction of hope is the moment when the woman chooses to abandon her abusive husband, and the worker chooses to quit his job.

On a collective level, social uprising happens when the population in general loses all hope that life will improve by means of the status quo. Radical reforms come when there is no more hope that simple patching and adjustments of the system can resolve all problems.

The Paradox: Hope After Hopelessness

The paradox I mentioned in the begining happens when all hope is lost. When the wife loses hope that her partner will improve; when the worker loses hope that their boss will promote them; they must make a choice: will they continue in a hopeless life? Or, will they give up on their miserable stability, and move forward, in a leap of faith, to the great unknown?

But, how can they give a leap of faith without hope?

Hope will motivate a worker to quit his job and seek a better life. It will motivate the wife to abandon her abusive partner, and seek a real love. It will motivate the People to rise against a tyrant or an idiot. By losing all hope in what exists now, one must find a spark of hope in a better future.

In fact, hopelessness can only be felt by the idealist, who always looks at the present, and wishes something better. Hope comes from hearts of those who know that life should be great, and the world fair.

The Cheer Up Folk Are The Real Hopeless

Conformists have a massive reservoir of hope in what exists now. So, they will remain in a painful comfort zone, using “undying hope” as an excuse to run away from a leap of faith into the unknown.

Our culture does not even realize that the unending call for “cheering up” is the cry of the conformists and cowards; in truth, they are the hopeless ones, because they lack hope to risk it, and escape their own misery.

The Problem With Logic

Logic is not enough to give one hope. Logic uses arguments and evidence to create a basis of belief. Imagine in the earliest days of human kind, when the first Homo sapiens left the African Savannas and moved North; did they move out of logic?

They did not have evidence that there was a land of fertility up North. They moved, not by reason, but by faith alone. And, when the journey seemed impossible, they gave hope to themselves. Hope drove them to Europe and Asia, and to the rest of the world.

The Human Instinct For Drastic Change

We are the sons and daughters of the Ancients, who have marched millions of miles through desert, savanna, forest, and mountains, unaware of their destination. We carry in our blood the same strength and intelligence that took the Homo sapiens out of Africa.

When we are in a miserable condition, there is only one way out: hopelessness for the now, and hope for the future.

We should never cheer up people, when their lives are, indeed, miserable. And, in fact, many of those who have no hope are stuck in a hopeless world. Their feeling is justified.

Our generation is, in general, condemned to work in dead end, repetitive, meaningless jobs, for very little pay, and no chance of improvement. Most people are incapable of being loyal, and incapable of love; they will always trap victims in painful relationships.

Eventually, we will all find ourselves stuck in a world where no life can prosper. When this happens, hopelessness is a gift that we give ourselves.

And hope for a better life is a necessity, even when it is illogical.