Human nature is sometimes difficult to decipher. As human beings, our altruistic predisposition is many times left to collect dust in the closet of our lives, only to see the light of day when it suits our need to brag, or to provide rebuttal for accusations of greed and self-centeredness. The dust barely settles from this quick closet disturbance before altruism is, once again, shoved back into its box and returned to the recesses of ignorance. Such is the status quo of human experience and real hope. In a battle between right and wrong, wrong usually wins. And wrong is always painted as right, causing right to be painted as wrong. It’s a game of smoke and mirrors, driven by ego, greed and selfishness. And so it goes with politics and religion. Politics and religion are the product of this parlor trick, and they utilize this same slight of hand in an effort to separate us from our intrinsic human liberty. Both engage in deception and mis-direction, photo-shopping the picture, tricking the eye into believing the impossible and the improbable. Whatever the issue, whatever the cause, we are easily manipulated to embrace and accept the despicable, reprehensible, the unthinkable.
Only the insider few own this feat. It is, after all, only for the rich and powerful. And, the horrific irony is that it is us, you and I, who gladly bestow, entertain, and fall for these parlor gags. We elect them, pay them, idolize them, revere them, adore them. We lie for them and die for them. And we do it because we are stupid, ignorant, lowly, incompetent, blithering fools. Where we reside, what we give approval for, is where hope is not.
There is very little real hope in the world. Faux hope is in abundance. It masquerades as money, power, fame. It wears the garments of lawmakers and clergy. It proclaims social order out of ignorance and the supernatural. Faux hope is wrapped in the American flag and carrying a cross. It is adorned in the jewelry and finery of cults of personality, and the pomp and circumstance of political chicanery in halls of power. Faux hope relies on the sweat and labor of the hopeless, their dreams precisely sketched to the script of the power brokers endeavor, masterfully crafting a delusion, a deception of grand proportions. The delusion is imprinted, the carrot dangled before the mouth of the starving horse. Real hope is nary to be found, except in those who know what real hope truly is.
What is real hope? To have hope, you must believe in yourself first and foremost. If you take personal responsibility for your thoughts, words and actions, and consider the consequences to others…you have planted a single seed of hope. If everyone did the same, a crop of real hope would spread like the most stubborn of weeds on the open winds of the prairie. It would infest and infect the world with honor, integrity and loyalty. Personal honor, based on the premise that there is honor among people of honor. Personal integrity, based on the premise of ethical treatment of all human beings. And finally, loyalty, based in the premise of dedication to human beings, human experience, and the trials and tribulations of existence.
Can this happen? I don’t know. The condition of the world, of our country, does not bode well for the few seeds of real hope that are scattered about. As long as humans continue to prefer delusion over reality, ignorance over personal responsibility, personality and dogma over facts and truth… As long as we continue to allow a few to create illusions for us instead of painting our own dreams… real hope is destined to die within the barren, dry, dusty desert of despair.
