Opinion/Editorial
THE INTENSITY OF HOPE
Eight billion people are spread across the surface of the planet, some in great clumps and others almost alone in wildernesses stretching from the nearly abandoned canyons of Chile all the way around to the lonely dunes of the Sahara and on toward the almost uninhabited northern and southern reaches of both poles. People abound. For millions of years, this spreading distribution around the earth has taken place in relative communication silence. This all began to change with the invention of the telegraph, then the telephone, and then television, the Internet, and cell phones. The change is now in full swing, and it has brought with it social restructuring of the most magnificent and wildly unpredictable kind.
People have found out, in huge numbers without regard to geographic or cultural boundaries, that they can reach not just one another when they attempt such but stand a relatively good chance of reaching nearly everyone. That they cannot reach nearly everyone is of almost no consequence, as we humans live inside belief systems modified for external circumstances as we see fit. Going ‘viral’ on YouTube or with a blog site is nearly impossible and it rarely happens (statistically). But that has not stopped the complete restructuring of our belief system.
Logic plays only a marginal role in this hugely effective change in our core values. If human beings responded well to logic or science, except in fits and jumps, all state and national lotteries would fail. One has about as much chance of winning a Powerball lottery as one has of gaining huge recognition using these new communications tools.
But, just as with enormous numbers of people contributing to these ridiculously impossible lottery games (most of which are more likely won by distant relatives and friends of the people operating them), human beings are coming to believe that they can ‘make it’ by becoming so well known that everyone will flock to them with attention…and therefore advertising, performance fees and/or book deals leading to big money. They have succumbed to an ‘intensity of hope’ that was never part of the general human belief system before. Such beliefs existed in pockets of societies with limited power and money flowing to those who could influence the people they came in contact with.
Today we have television demonstrating the glaring success of those who have risen to great fame through no performance of brilliance, talent, or any other indicator except fame itself. We have Paris Hilton, gaining great fame for a porn video. We have people like Ann Coulter and Al Sharpton who’ve never done a thing in their life except get famous. We have people coming from nowhere to appear on our national television broadcasts as persons of merit, when there is no merit displayed or even attempted to be displayed.
These presentations, put to us primarily through our television sets and computer devices, have given humanity a new intensity of hope that is obscuring our need to pay very close attention to our very survival. Science is falling rapidly behind as a place to invest one’s time. The study of history, art, library science and even writing is becoming less and less important as every year goes by. We are so immersed in becoming ‘someone,’ or ‘anyone’ that we have forgotten that the survival of our cultures is not founded upon a very few people being treated exceptionally. The Queen of England made no decisions about anything other than clothing and silverware for service. The President of the United States, and Barack Obama has proven this beyond all doubt, is powerless to effect change except in very isolated and limited circumstances. Our cultures are dependent upon people working at jobs that accomplish the making of things necessary for us to succeed against the elements of weather, geologic change, and even time. If your car is broken down a news commentator is not going to help you. If your home does not have heat a movie star is useless to you. If you need a business loan the Balloon Boy’s parents are not going to do you any good.
The intensity of hope is setting the ‘limbo’ bar so close to the earth that only a flatworm will be able to get under it, yet those who fail will keep trying to make themselves flatter and flatter instead of making a decision not to play the game anymore and to get back to conducting life on this planet as it must be lived for us to survive, together and alone. To live we must somehow come to understand and capture within our belief system that success is not truly connected to fame. It is connected directly to bliss. And bliss comes from the inside not the outside. Joe Campbell said all this years ago and was basically ignored.
Bliss is not happiness. Happiness is a word that uses ‘happening’ as its root. Bliss is something deeper and much more pronounced. It’s an inner feeling that it’s good to be here, no matter what your circumstance or level of other people admiring you or making you famous. Bliss is admiring yourself and working to get better at doing that. Bliss is all about the intensity of the hope that can lie at the very center of our humanity…if we will embrace and accept it. Everything is not going to be alright. Everything that we work to make alright has a pretty good chance of making that happen, however.
