As we watch the historic impeachment proceedings of our sitting president, the wildfires tearing through Australia and the drastically changing ecosystem of Midwestern lakes at the beginning of this new decade, we can feel helpless. Which is not, necessarily, to say hopeless. So we thought it would be a good moment to re-air our three-part series on hope from last year.
This week I’ll share some of your recent comments on the series. Keep your thoughts on hope — whether you are feeling it or not — coming, and send them to me at listen@ttbook.org.
—Shannon
Jessica Kay Murray, via Facebook
Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote that hope is the opposite of contentment. At what stage should you accept and be content with shortcomings and poverty? She has been rightfully criticized for her views on eugenics, but her general definition of hope resonated with me.
Ellen Dibble, via Twitter
I am listening to Scott Simon being told that we are reliving the hope fascism brought in the 1930s, POV of Spain. It was the fashion, fascism, fast exodus/solutions -- rationalizations, I'm thinking. Realize there are no shortcuts, no matter how tantalizing. Together now...
Mark Giese, Wisconsin
"Once again, then, ideas of the most optimistic nature are the biologically pertinent ones."
[from Seth and Jane Roberts, "The Way Toward Health"]
However, re Steven Pinker, while most all of what he said is perfectly true, if one is concerned about other species, as I am, we appear to be undergoing a mass extinction crisis.
Nancy Norman, via Facebook
Thanks for the compilation. I've had these conversations saved on my phone for a good while, and pull one up every now and then. They're not boundless optimism, but rather thoughtful, brave, questioning. All things we need now.