give it up

national gallery, dublin
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Hope is in fact a curse, a bane. I say this not only because of the lovely Buddhist saying “Hope and fear chase each other’s tails,” not only because hope leads us away from the present, away from who and where we are right now and toward some imaginary future state. I say this because of what hope is.
. . .
When we realize the degree of agency we actually do have, we no longer have to “hope” at all. We simply do the work. … We do whatever it takes.

When we stop hoping for external assistance, when we stop hoping the situation will somehow not get worse, then we are finally free – truly free – to honestly start working to resolve it. I would say that when hope dies, action begins.”

Derick Jensen in the May | June 2006 issue of Orion »