How to Find Hope in a Hopeless Place

And why it’s often more complicated than you think

Photo by JOHN TOWNER on Unsplash

And I say to myself:
a moon will rise
from my darkness.

— MAHMOUD DARWISH

Hope is what remains in Pandora’s box after, despite Zeus warning her not to, she succumbs to her curiosity and lifts the lid.

Opening the box unleashes all the evils into the world: hate, greed, envy, war, poverty, death… But as she realizes what she’s done and slams the lid shut, hope is caught. Hope, says the myth, is left for humans to weather what has been unleashed, a bulwark against all the negative and horrible experiences they will now have to face.

There’s another interpretation of the tale, however. After all why, in a box full of only awful things, is hope there at all? This alternative idea is that hope is just as dreadful as the other evils; it remains for humans as more of a curse than a blessing.

So, which is it?

This summer, my publisher commissioned me to write a book about hope. Before this, I hadn’t given the concept that much thought. What I soon found is that it is not as straightforward as it seems.

What I learned is that hope is best explained as both interpretations of the…