In the chaos that is a life truly lived, I have one again fallen behind in my writing. I am going to try again to keep up on that passion, whatever form that takes.

I was going back over old posts here and noticed a theme. Hope.

I don’t have the best relationship with the hope. Apart from being aggressively analytical, I’ve watched things in my life crash and burn too many times.

I understand hopes place in our lives. Especially for people who are in a hard place. But when hope is wrong, I turn very pessimistic.

Lately, hope has come up a lot. Not just the idle comments about hoping for this or that. It has come up where people talk about needing it. Buying a lottery ticket because, despite knowing they probably won’t win, the hope would get them through another week. Or how they needed to something to hope for, even if it was dumb.

Part of my issue with hope is how easy it is for hope to turn to denial or delusion. Choosing to ignore painful truths so they can cling to the “hope” that things will be different next time.

I’ve done this too. In the last few years I’ve chosen to overlook serious red flags in a few situations or behaviors because I didn’t want to let go of what was there.

I am incredibly lucky to have an amazing partner who has patiently watched me fight myself over these things. She has been the greatest cause for hope that I’ve had in years.

I still struggle with the idea. But I can see the need. Every time I look at the data and see the world around me getting colder, crueler, I recognize that the very last vestige of strength that pushes us through to the victory we have been fighting so hard for, is often blind hope.

I can’t change how clinical my world view is. But I keep hoping…

-Samael