How to cultivate hope, when it's weird.
March 8, 2022 8:20 PM Subscribe
Different methods.
This is it. Totally generic. Books, actions, whatever you have.
This is it. Totally generic. Books, actions, whatever you have.
Embrace the chaos. Change is inevitable and odds are it won't be -all- bad.
posted by The otter lady at 9:55 PM on March 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by The otter lady at 9:55 PM on March 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
Honestly when I'm down sometimes I watch skate videos, extra good if they are mostly about the process of failing over and over again to land the trick. (Some of the ones from the 'My War' series I linked do involve skating injuries, if that's something you want to avoid.)
I think it's a combination of the drive it takes and how stoked everyone is when a trick gets landed. It's a little community coming together to do sick stunts.
Don't know if that's what you're looking for, but sometimes it's what I need.
posted by crossswords at 10:08 PM on March 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
I think it's a combination of the drive it takes and how stoked everyone is when a trick gets landed. It's a little community coming together to do sick stunts.
Don't know if that's what you're looking for, but sometimes it's what I need.
posted by crossswords at 10:08 PM on March 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
I saw some amphipods having a lovely time in a muddy water-filled wheel rut nearby yesterday. They were having a lovely time -- very active. The only reason I could see them so easily was that someone's research paper had blown all over the road, and one white page was half immersed in the muddy water.
A tiny mud track made by a truck a long time ago, with trash in it, and they were having a little shrimpy party. How did they even get there??? In the woods?
And how did I even learn what they were? I picked one up by accident last year and did a ton of asking around until it was identified. In fact, the only reason I was on that track was to honor that organism from last year -- I returned it's water to the nearby place I picked it up -- and serendipity rewarded me.
Tiny shrimp. In isolated mud puddles. All over the place, apparently.
I love looking at small things. They can seem, at least for a while, so totally oblivious to the world we know.
posted by amtho at 10:15 PM on March 8, 2022 [15 favorites]
A tiny mud track made by a truck a long time ago, with trash in it, and they were having a little shrimpy party. How did they even get there??? In the woods?
And how did I even learn what they were? I picked one up by accident last year and did a ton of asking around until it was identified. In fact, the only reason I was on that track was to honor that organism from last year -- I returned it's water to the nearby place I picked it up -- and serendipity rewarded me.
Tiny shrimp. In isolated mud puddles. All over the place, apparently.
I love looking at small things. They can seem, at least for a while, so totally oblivious to the world we know.
posted by amtho at 10:15 PM on March 8, 2022 [15 favorites]
I don't know if it's helpful, and I'm not one to use hope as a tool in general (I prefer "ambition"), but I figure that being able to interpret things as "being weird" is hope doing its job and not leaving you in confusion and despair. To me, "weird" is an intermediate state when things aren't identifiably one way or another, as a new or undefined set of experiences. Things will shake out, it's not an abyss.
In this weightless space I (try to) gravitate toward John Cage: "Begin anywhere."
posted by rhizome at 1:07 AM on March 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
In this weightless space I (try to) gravitate toward John Cage: "Begin anywhere."
posted by rhizome at 1:07 AM on March 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
Reading a Mary Oliver poem every day. It keeps me open to being astonished, and thoughtful, and, in turn, lets me hope.
posted by sedimentary_deer at 2:37 AM on March 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by sedimentary_deer at 2:37 AM on March 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
I doing it by making a point of looking forward to outliving famous people I loathe. Seems I'm not the only one.
When You're Feeling Low, Just Remember I'll Be Dead In About 15 Or 20 Years
Nixon's gone. Reagan's gone. Thatcher's gone. Kissinger continues to be a bit stubborn about it but we'll get there.
posted by flabdablet at 2:59 AM on March 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
When You're Feeling Low, Just Remember I'll Be Dead In About 15 Or 20 Years
Nixon's gone. Reagan's gone. Thatcher's gone. Kissinger continues to be a bit stubborn about it but we'll get there.
posted by flabdablet at 2:59 AM on March 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
Best answer: I am not sure how you define hope but this article claims that hope is all about action. It also notes that, according to one study, "Hopeful people did not necessarily seek out emotionally positive information. However, people high on hope spent less time paying attention to emotionally sad or threatening information." That resonates with me because doomscrolling tends to quickly extinguish any sense of hope I have about the future of the planet, etc. This is a great question; wish I had a better answer.
posted by Bella Donna at 4:14 AM on March 9, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by Bella Donna at 4:14 AM on March 9, 2022 [10 favorites]
Response by poster: Last edit and not to threadsit: this might disappear, but just because there's a best answer, please don't stop answering.
posted by firstdaffodils at 8:22 AM on March 9, 2022
posted by firstdaffodils at 8:22 AM on March 9, 2022
Sometimes hope is a choice and sometimes it's a mindset you just have. Sometimes it's not possible to get into the mindset of feeling like you have a choice. I feel like I am lucky enough to be on the border there, where I can work hard to get to the "I can make a choice" position (but it's not natural) and here are some of the things that help me, together with the understanding that this doesn't work for everyone and sometimes it doesn't work for me.
- I like to be around more hopeful people and so I figure if I am someone who expresses hope, that may make people like to be around me more and just generally up the level of hope in the ambient area.
- I have to get up and live my life tomorrow anyhow, so I may as well do it figuring it's going to be worth it than by deciding it's all doomed. So I think, actively, about what things are going to make tomorrow "worth it" either for me or for me-adjacent stuff (i.e. can I help someone with a thing, can I do anything that would matter to anyone)
- I try to be realistic about the things I can and can't actually change, both about me and about the world. I try to help and then try to get to a point where I feel that the help I've given (money, emotional support, something concrete) is enough "for now" and part of the trick is figuring out what "for now" can mean. For today? For this week? Until the end of this current crisis?
- I think about Buddhist approaches where attachment to stuff is the root of suffering and I think about what I am attached to and whether it's serving me
- I watch the birds. They're doing their thing, not really living in the middle of a pandemic or the other negative things that I might ascribe to being alive nowadays. That helps me get grounded in a way that is useful.
It's challenging because if you're around a lot of people you may find that you become a bit of a target if you're actively being hopeful online. That is part of it. So thinking about how you can make being hopeful the right choice for you without putting it on other people that you think it's the right choice for them, is a useful part of this.
posted by jessamyn at 10:13 AM on March 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
- I like to be around more hopeful people and so I figure if I am someone who expresses hope, that may make people like to be around me more and just generally up the level of hope in the ambient area.
- I have to get up and live my life tomorrow anyhow, so I may as well do it figuring it's going to be worth it than by deciding it's all doomed. So I think, actively, about what things are going to make tomorrow "worth it" either for me or for me-adjacent stuff (i.e. can I help someone with a thing, can I do anything that would matter to anyone)
- I try to be realistic about the things I can and can't actually change, both about me and about the world. I try to help and then try to get to a point where I feel that the help I've given (money, emotional support, something concrete) is enough "for now" and part of the trick is figuring out what "for now" can mean. For today? For this week? Until the end of this current crisis?
- I think about Buddhist approaches where attachment to stuff is the root of suffering and I think about what I am attached to and whether it's serving me
- I watch the birds. They're doing their thing, not really living in the middle of a pandemic or the other negative things that I might ascribe to being alive nowadays. That helps me get grounded in a way that is useful.
It's challenging because if you're around a lot of people you may find that you become a bit of a target if you're actively being hopeful online. That is part of it. So thinking about how you can make being hopeful the right choice for you without putting it on other people that you think it's the right choice for them, is a useful part of this.
posted by jessamyn at 10:13 AM on March 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
Response by poster: "So thinking about how you can make being hopeful the right choice for you without putting it on other people that you think it's the right choice for them, is a useful part of this." Can you reword this in a slightly different way? Seeing duplicate meaning. Thanks very much.
posted by firstdaffodils at 10:28 AM on March 9, 2022
posted by firstdaffodils at 10:28 AM on March 9, 2022
Sure. Sometimes people are hopeful and they think that this is a fact-based outlook and that everyone should feel the same way because they believe there is only one way to view the world and so if another person is not hopeful it is because they are wrong. They can tr yo convince the other person about their hopefulness, this is often not helpful.
I think that there are a lot of ways to view the world and mine is only one of them, so while that may be my outlook I am not telling other people that they need to view the world the way I do. And I think that is important, it points to hope being more like a choice and less like math (although obviously brain chemistry is part of this and I don't mean to discredit this).
posted by jessamyn at 10:53 AM on March 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
I think that there are a lot of ways to view the world and mine is only one of them, so while that may be my outlook I am not telling other people that they need to view the world the way I do. And I think that is important, it points to hope being more like a choice and less like math (although obviously brain chemistry is part of this and I don't mean to discredit this).
posted by jessamyn at 10:53 AM on March 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
Nature. Maine right now is gray and brown, icy except where it's muddy, cold. But the buds are swelling on the fruit trees. Birds are returning; the robins who nest in my yard will be back any day now. It's just possible I'll win the guess the ice-out date on the lake contest. Spring is all about hope; go outside and you'll be soaking in it, sometimes literally.
posted by theora55 at 1:03 PM on March 9, 2022
posted by theora55 at 1:03 PM on March 9, 2022
When I need to grapple with hope, I go back to Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart.
posted by ch1x0r at 6:33 PM on March 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by ch1x0r at 6:33 PM on March 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
Mod note: A few deleted. OP, Ask Metafilter is not for ongoing back and forth conversation or commentary from the poster on everyone's answers. Just relax and choose what's helpful for you and disregard the rest.
posted by taz (staff) at 12:04 AM on March 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by taz (staff) at 12:04 AM on March 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
One day crossing the off leash part of the park I really thought about the dogs running and barking up trees. There was something about the fact that they do this every single day and they are truly excited that today might be the day that a squirrel actually comes down the tree for them - it struck me somehow. It definitely cheered me up. Like the hope itself is a pleasure for them, and whatever actually happens is totally separate from the hope.
posted by Salamandrous at 5:14 PM on March 17, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Salamandrous at 5:14 PM on March 17, 2022 [2 favorites]
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posted by vrakatar at 8:50 PM on March 8, 2022 [6 favorites]