Hope

Hope is in short supply.
I saw on a video recently something that highlights to me one of the reasons why.  Oprah was interviewing some guy and there was reason for audience involvement.  A guy in the audience spoke and gave a real message of hope.  The crowd were cheering and clapping.  It showed the difference to me between what we are fed and what we feel and long for.
The media is often told (and I believe rightly so) that they are scare mongering.  I hold to the view that what I feed grows.  It seems to me media feeds fear.  No wonder there is a seeming epidemic of fear and anxiety in our society.  What is there, the media makes it worse.
The politics is not the point to me, but I thought it was a valid point.  A guy went on Q&A and said something like “as a Liberal on Q&A I have a high-risk appetite.” The point for me was audiences are hand picked to reflect the agenda of the show.
We can get Fox news, but I refuse to watch it.  I may agree or disagree with what they say but I feel it is too unbalanced.  They relentlessly push their agenda and fail to acknowledge or give any credit to alternatives.  Recently they changed something they were saying.  Not because they necessarily had a change of view, but viewers left in droves.  Self-interest prevailed.
I saw one of those hidden camera things.  The activity was questionable.  Results shown were exactly what was wanted.  It did make me wonder how many people were needed to be filmed to get enough footage to show the desired results.
As I have said before I am all for being informed, but if I succumbed to what is being promoted I would be disinclined to leave my triple locked and bolted house.  It seems the way I hear the truth is when something happens that is unscripted.
It seems wield to me that what I am feed is diametrically opposed to the aspirations of humanity.  I live in hope.  It is the reason I get up of a morning.  There may be needs that force me, up but they are always undertaken with a view to making an improvement or maintaining the status quo.
For me the best sort of hope is a forever thing. I am grateful for a hope that gets me over the next hump, but I prefer one that gets me over all humps.  For me it is not a “shine my chest with my fingernail’s” thing, but a “discover it in the attack almost by accident” thing.
Hope for me needs to be enduring.  There are many things that come my way, and for a lot I win the round on points.  But there are those that knock me about at least, and can knock me out cold.
It may not be fair, (and often things are not fair) but often the opponent I face is not in my weight division.  It is a heavy weight vs a light weight.  But thankfully an enduring hope means I have something up my sleeve.
While Thoreau may be attributed with “most men lead lives of quiet desperation” my goal is different.   In fact, it is an antonym of desperate.  It is optimistic and hopeful.