‘The heavy weight of hope’
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about a particular passage in one of Malcolm Ivey’s novels. Written more than 10 years ago, With Arms Unbound is a riveting tale of the unlikely love story between a prison inmate and a female guard. Early in the story, Ivey describes the inmate, Kevin, as initially spending hours in the prison law library researching case law and filing appeal after appeal and getting denial after denial until, years later, the long appeal process had finally been exhausted. When the last appeal was denied with not even so much as an explanation, Ivey writes, Kevin ripped up all the legal documents he owned and threw them in the trash.
The passage reads, in part: “There’s a freedom in saying fuck it, in accepting one’s fate. He sat on his bed and gazed into his suddenly spacious footlocker. Gone was the possibility of ever getting a new trial, but so too was the heavy weight of hope…”
The heavy weight of hope.
That brilliant line resonated with me when I first read it 10 years ago, and it resonates much more deeply today as I think about the state of our world, including this country. I’ve been teetering on the edge of despair for a while now, even after putting myself on a strict, less-news diet and trying to ignore any reports of current events, particularly of a political nature.
Activists caution against giving in to despair because “it leads to paralysis and disengagement,” and that only feeds the other side. But given the choice between activism and sanity, I’ve chosen sanity. If other people have the mental and emotional fortitude to remain in the struggle, I wish them well. I just can’t anymore.
My choice of sanity, however, has not brought me peace or optimism.
I know there are many pockets of good in the world and in our communities. People are helping their neighbors, the hungry are being fed, a kind word is being spoken, doors are being held, loads are being lightened. I try to focus on the “good” when I can and it buoys me for a moment or two.
Unlike many, I do not blame social media for all the world’s ills. That’s fashionable nowadays, but it’s scapegoating. It seems every generation has a scapegoat. Your grandparents probably blamed Elvis and his evil rock ‘n roll music. In reality, social media is only a tool, like any other tool. A kitchen knife can be used to chop vegetables, or to kill somebody; either way, it’s a tool to be managed. We cannot and should not allow it to manage us.
Others blame the media in general. Being a consumer of any kind of news requires critical thinking skills, which takes more work than passively believing everything you read and hear without question. Most people aren’t interested in doing that extra work, and news organizations with “an agenda” know that and take advantage of it. So don’t let them; vet them.
I don’t believe everything I read or hear, but sometimes I’m a first-hand witness. When I watch video from a speech by a politician or leader and hear nothing but bizarre, perverted nonsense, I can’t unhear that, and I can’t draw a different conclusion than “God help us, we’re so screwed.”
So I find I’ve released the heavy weight of hope… for our country, never mind the world. With my expectations being less than zero, it’s possible I’ll be pleasantly surprised once in a while. But I doubt it. Listen to me: I’m in the dark here.
