Hope seems to be the rallying cry for cancer patients, cancer survivors, cancer supporters, cancer etc. you get the idea… I think about what hope is. A lot. Really, what is it? Cancer seems to be in fact the anti-hope and yet is the realization of what hope is, was, and will be. It is unfortunate that we are forced to grapple with our own sense of health, happiness, and contentment, when we are touched by cancer. Our own truth and measurement system is based on that sliding scale of what we believe could, should, shouldn’t, or will happen. Is it in a sense denial? Is it the strange process by which we go through a grieving process as we face changing situations and expected loss?* Is hope the opposite of fear? Of course not… that would be too easy. It’s probably some equation that sets our emotions into a state of hope…. but how cool would that be:
[HOPE - Despair] 2 = [Situation]3 / [(Contentment /Loss - Gains) * Self esteem ]
Ah, I just wish it were that easy, but since I seem to have forgotten my algebra the secrets of hope are lost forever. I can only hold on, hoping that hope is somewhere within my grasp. I think the truest quote on the existence of hope has got to be from Futurama:
“You can’t give up hope because it is hopeless!
You have to hope even more and cover your ears
and go ‘BLAH, BLAH, BLAH’”
I guess hope will always be the thing that is best seen out of the corner of your eye. It is the thing that is always sought, but never found. Created, but never made…. Well you get the point.
*I don’t mean “loss” of life by the way… I think dying is probably not necessarily the reason for hope in this situation, we continue to fear death throughout the process, but I never feel that “not dying” is the reason we experience hope… In that particular situation it feels more like having hope that we live life well. So the end goal of that sense of hope is to hold on to that sense of well being and worth while moment.
Tags: Cancer, Hope, New Project, Rethink, Thoughts about hope