Hope.

Yeah, Obama beat this one to death as a slogan, but let's really look at this.

Hope....yeah, given all the bullshit we have to dig out from under, hope is really hard to hold on to sometimes....

It really is enough to make one despair.

But, when you really look at despair, pretty much all forms of it are some variation on "we're doomed!", and that statement right there says that you think you know how it all will end.

Well, the good news, is no one knows how it all will end.
Only psychics claim that with certainty, and they're totally full of shit.

As Yogi Berra said "it ain't over til it's over".

And just look at all the doom-saying we made it out the other end of.
And when we did, the doom turned out to be an illusion.

All the "duck and cover", shit from The Cold War is a prime example.

And speaking of The Cold War, it was a gloomy conventional wisdom back in the 80's that the Berlin Wall was going to be up for decades to come.

Well, look now, we're celebrating the 20th anniversary of its fall.

Hope?
Hell yeah, we've got plenty of elbow room for it.
Not just in the big picture, but each and every one of us.

When hope is hard to come by, just think of all the other things that seemed hopeless.
Shit, pretty much every big decision anyone had to make when you think about it.

Okay, some people are doomed, some people's lots are hopeless.
Lotta awful shit going on.
Lotta awful shit has gone on.
I'm not claiming that a sunny outlook alone is going to save a death camp internee.

But, by the same token, despair sure isn't gonna help, all despair adds to misery is despair itself.

Despair didn't bring that wall down.
And it is down, isn't it?

Hope.
It's a tricky thing, but it should be erred on the side of whenever possible.
And short of the moment of your murderer sliding the knife in, I'm at a loss to come up with too many practical moments where it's not possible.

Shit, look at all those little kids with terminal cancer that manage to come at life all chirpy.

Hope.
I think it's a good thing, I think it should be subscribed to.
I think we have plenty of evidence for it.

I'm sure an ornery cuss could make a counter-argument.
Heck, I know one who has.
Wasn't impressed.

Perhaps someone will do better.
But it seems to me, that someone would have to be motivated, and despair is exactly the sort of thing that would curtail motivation.
Not many people all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed over the whole pro-despair argument.
No one stable anyway.
I haven't seen one.

But hey, I live in hope. ;)