the insanity of hope

Some random, high-intensity rambling:

Gratitude is an act of humility. 

Humility is an act of honesty. 

So gratitude is indirectly an act of honesty. 

Honesty is an act of insanity.

Hope is insane. 

Gratitude can meet hope, then, at insanity... 

Which is perhaps another word for faith. 

Or vice-versa.

Did I mention that my freshman year at University I got a D+ in my Intro to Logic class? It's the "plus" at the end that makes me such an expert. 

Hear me out, though. 

I pinky-swear there's ice cream for you at the end if you stick with me.*

Let's dig in:

Gratitude is an act of humility because it acknowledges that I am a very small, very vulnerable, very flawed, and very, very mortal creature. From my particular perspective, gratitude also acknowledges that I am not inevitable, and believes that I have Someone to be grateful to (although whom, I would contend, is - and should be - shrouded in mystery). Which is to say that I am less self-determined than I might like to think.

Humility is an act of honesty because it acknowledges the truth, setting aside the elaborate pretensions and projects that I as a human am obsessed with creating - the little sand-castle narratives I heap around myself in order to imbue my eensy-weensy little life with an exceptional, immortal significance. I will say that I am, I think, a marvel. But I am not exceptional. Owning that only opens me up to more truthful, Other-centric living.

Honesty is an act of insanity because sanity is the name we humans give to the elaborate pretensions and projects that we tend to run after all willy-nilly. By denying those pretensions and projects, we enter into an upside-down kingdom where none of that other stuff matters even a Smidge on the Backside of a Dung Beetle.

Hope is insane, when you think about it, because it's a departure from reason - which would have us tabulating evidence and forming conclusions based on those tabulations. But the evidence, should we care to look closely, indicates maybe even most often (if you're going to insist on strict rationality) that any altruism or kindness or love or beauty in the world all boils down to some potentially misguided Darwinian imperative, and that we're all just a bunch of carbon-based, water-soaked meat sacks, running around frantically trying to reproduce our genetic code before we croak. To say otherwise (to hope, as I do, in a transcendent significance to all this madness), is to deny the evidence of our senses and rely instead on some barely-definable, alternate source of knowledge.

So be it. 

Insanity over sanity. 

Hope over despair.

Honesty over dishonesty.

Humility over pride.

Gratitude over fear. 

Love, too, over fear. Love over everything. Because if I write the most beautiful prose and have the most perfectly formulated, reasoned arguments but haven't got love, I'm the biggest nob there is.

Love, love and more love. 

All you need is love. 

Also, I can't seem to figure out how to end this post.

So...

Love.

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*I was lying about the ice cream. Never trust a thirty-four year old man's pinky-swear.

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A FINAL NOTE: Writing isn't magic. It's hard work, and the greatest reward for that work is to share it with others. So if you enjoyed this little (ad-free) piece of my brain... please share the love on your social internets. And pick up a copy of my Short Story Collection, whilst you're at it. You can even get it as an ebook for less than a fancy cuppa hot bean-water, and it'll last waaay longer.