On bitchy, bitchy hope

What do you do when you rationally, realistically realize that something is pretty much hopeless? When your higher brain functions acknowledge something as terribly improbable, when you're mentally prepared to accept that it has a snowflake's chance in hell of succeeding...and yet you keep yearning for it? Or am I talking about the difference between hope and desire? Perhaps they're interchangeable - it's quite difficult to hope for something you don't want, and you can't want something without even the tiniest hope that you might get it. You can certainly acknowledge it as hopeless, you can tell yourself that it simply can't happen...but deep down inside, there's always that tiniest glimmer that says, "Just maybe..."

There is something interesting about the duality of hope. Hope can keep a man going long after he should have long since expired. If it's strong enough, it can be the only thing that keeps him going. Hope can be marvelous, because it means we can go to bed on a dark today wishing for a brighter tomorrow. Because not to hope is to accept something that might otherwise be unacceptable. Hope can support us and keep us going in the face of the worst opposition, as we drag ourselves toward that light so far at the end of the tunnel. Hope believes in change.

But perhaps hope can also be a dark thing, a consuming thing. Hope leads all too easily into obsession. Even if it's not quite that extreme, hope can become the yearning for something that...realistically can't happen. What use is hope if what is hoped for can't occur. What use is dragging yourself through the tunnel when there isn't a light at the end?

Heh. And there is my dualism, in a way, and yet not. There's always a light at the end of the tunnel, somewhere. Maybe not in this one, and maybe you can't see it, but there is always light somewhere. Even in my worst dregs of despair, there's always something, SOMETHING that I can hold onto. Something bigger and brighter than myself, perhaps. Hell, even the knowledge that in the end, the universe goes on.

God, I'm such a drama queen.

I wish Myia were here. I need to talk to her so badly it's painful. 'Cause damn it all to hell, I've done it again.

Okay, I'm abstracting, and I know I'm abstracting. In fact, not only am I abstracting, but I'm also being terribly emo at the same time..and Jesus bloody Christ, some of it is being emo ABOUT abstracting. Do you know that sensation when you step slightly outside yourself and go, "My good man...do you have any idea what you sound like?" And then you kind of just want to grab yourself and shake until a) all your teeth rattle out or b) you get a grip and realize you're a mature adult, not a whiny sixteen year-old. There are mature ways to deal with things, and I actually know what they are.

All things in good time, all things as they develop, and...

You know what? Fuck it. I give myself the right to hope.