I'm starting to wonder if hope and optimism are a luxury, based on some level of privilege that comes from having basic needs met. I see a family member struggling after years of no job or inadequate jobs. I hear increasing negativity and cynicism in her voice, and her attempt to control it by thinking and planning. I feel helpless to do anything. Part of it is my own sense of hope and positivity--a better sense of myself and the possibilities for the future. I wonder if hope itself is a luxury that not everyone can afford.
I notice myself distancing from this sense of helplessness, as if it's a sort of personal failure on my part. I don't want to do that, but I don't know what answers I have.
Luckily, I have to read the Bhagavad Gita for a class, so maybe I'll learn a little something.
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1 comment:
Interesting.
I just saw a movie that presented the exact opposite hypothesis: that doubt is a privilege and hope/faith comes from oppression and the instict to survive.
Perhaps tempermant and cultural values have something to do with all of this.
A beautiful woman that I used to sponsor in AA often quoted this: "When I'm doubting I don't tell myself to have faith and when I have faith I don't tell myself to doubt." That sounded overly simplistic to me then and it still does today. I try to have dialogues between hope/faith and doubt without arriving at any decisive conclusion. Makes me more human and open to other stories, lives and view-points.
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