I don’t know how to speak to hope, with the words I put to the page never seeming enough. The only reason I want to speak to hope in the first place is that I’ve been thinking about hope, or the lack thereof, in both myself and the world around me. It’s like gravity pulling dreams and aspirations down to the ground and burying them beneath the soil. It’s like a force is speaking little messages to people, telling them not to hope or pray for wishes because wishes are for the lucky and hope is for the foolish.

But what is hope except for a wish not yet to come, a part of our heart speaks out so loudly that ask us to take a chance on the world and its wonders and believe that more is possible? Hope is what the architect sees before the building, the engineer sees before the machine. Hope is an extension of the dreams but… dangerous thinking that is, because to aspire to leave your neck out to get cleaved and those who forsake hope, survivors of the dream guillotine, don’t want to get hurt again.

I can understand this apprehension and this desire to abandon hope. As you get older the world continues to test the willingness to hope and more of your life feels as if it were to be a graveyard for dreams. Those who are lucky, seem to be blessed in some way by the universe to continue forward unimpeded, but the for the rest of us, it feels as if every day we spend climbing mountains.

I’ve lost hope in people and institutions while I’ve been living in this stateless place. Maybe I’ve been an idealist all this time because I’ve been fortunate enough to guard my heart and hope enough not to get ravaged by the hands of time. Now my heart lays exposed and bloodied by the experiences of the past few years, marred and marked about the failings of hope and effort. I’m sure there are some that will believe that the death of ideals and dreams will give way to a clearer view of reality. Those who believe that setting the bar low only provides a more accurate view of the universe. The people who call themselves realists have been beaten and broken by the cost of dreams, see the world as one broken place and that if they dare to dream that dreams would be dashed and only pain would persist.

Maybe this is why I can’t stop myself from caring because I stop caring about this world and others that I give way to the death of my dreaming. That if I lose all hope and persist entirely without the expectations of others or the future, all that would be left is a shell of myself who goes through the motions without an end in sight. That it’s this foolish hope about the change in the world, that someday we find can find a better way and my efforts mean something that keeps me looking forward and coming back to the table.

It’s hard though, to hope in a place that has done nothing but balks at my dreaming and my aspirations. To call only for persistence through extraordinary circumstances as a solution. To feel isolated, alone, and not to be taken seriously. I can understand why I have so much hurt with hope because hope is the knife that continues to make me bleed. It’s the belief that things will get better here and that all my experiences have been a string of bad luck and not the result of my failings. Hope has me believe that the future is calling, and as long as I work towards it, things may go my way. It’s hard to continue to be as I feel hope as I experience the cleave of dream guillotine regularly. At times it feels as if these people and places are avatars of the universe acting like an executioner of my dreams.

I know the power of hope, though small at times, keeps me persisting ever longer with the belief that my continued progress will get me to eventually meet my dreams. I haven’t given up but man… it’s been hard, and at times I find myself hoping for wishes and wishing for hope.