Hopefulness Is the Warrior Emotion
A six month check-up on our sanity.
Hi, it’s me.
Well, it’s been six months since America voted for Donald, and I don’t know about you, but the administration’s strategy to flood the zone or whatever appears to be working on my nervous system. I’ve stopped scrolling news feeds and hot takes on social media, turning instead to checking headlines directly from various publications about once a day, sometimes less. I rarely click through to read whole articles. This helps me stay on top of the general state of things without getting sucked into the drama.
However, this doesn’t mean I’m ignoring the world. Through my work outside of this newsletter, at my day job in nonprofit fundraising, I’m a little more granular about tracking issues related to poverty, homelessness, racism, immigration, mental health, food insecurity, and other issues currently under attack by this administration. The inflammatory language, dehumanizing rhetoric, outright lies, and blatant disdain for compassion, empathy, and belonging is both fascinating to watch unfold and infuriating to see take hold in the media.
As a communications professional, I can roll my eyes at most of what spews out of this administration because I know all of their deceptive tricks. I can see their creative brief in my mind’s eye, how it outlines their communication channels, their objectives, forms of deliveries, key words, authors/speakers, and key performance metrics. I can imagine their daily briefings, their conversations about pivoting when something’s not working or they need to redirect a narrative. I’ve made creative briefs like this. I’ve led those briefings. I’ve written click-bait headlines and provocative copy. Sometimes it went viral.
If I wanted to, I could use those same tactics to push my $65 annual subscription fee. I would lure you with a sense of discontent or fear, demonstrating how deeply I understand your insecurities, that I can see exactly what you need to overcome them. I would offer you relief from this confusion and would call it something like, The Three Step Confidence Plan: Your Guide to Overcoming Mediocrity, and I would write weekly newsletters pointing out just how insecure you really are. I would convincingly remind you each week that you don’t know what you’re doing, but I do, and if you just subscribe and give me money, I’ll keep you in a constant state of cusp-ness, of being on the cusp of greatness yet never quite getting there until you subscribe and download my plan and give me $65.
Should I go on? Have I convinced you?
Rolling my eyes at it all may keep myself sane, but it doesn’t change the fact that their deceptive tricks seem to be working in general. This doesn’t mean people are stupid for believing it. These tactics work because they work. If you’re frustrated that someone you love is believing the hype, if you’re worried you might be believing the hype, be patient. Stay human. It’s rough out there and hard to know what to believe, and most people are only trying to look out for the people they love.
Anyway, whether or not people are believing any of it, they’re at minimum feeding the fire and giving it oxygen. Hence, my own limited and controlled engagement with consuming the rhetoric, which is focused mostly on what I need to know for keeping my organization’s programs funded and operating.
Recently I came across a letter Nick Cave wrote to a fan through his Red Hand Files newsletter in response to a question about cynicism. I put the full exchange below, but here’s an excerpt:
Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard-earned, makes demands upon us, and can often feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on Earth. Hopefulness is not a neutral position either. It is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism. Each redemptive or loving act, as small as you like, Valerio, such as reading to your little boy, or showing him a thing you love, or singing him a song, or putting on his shoes, keeps the devil down in the hole. It says the world and its inhabitants have value and are worth defending. It says the world is worth believing in. In time, we come to find that it is so.
Hopefulness is not a neutral position—it’s the warrior emotion.
This got me riled up! After the election back in November, I wrote about how fear can drive us toward isolation or it can drive us toward community. I vowed to stay outward. I wanted to be outward. I invited you to be outward with me, writing…
In this season of darkness and despair, I hope you keep trying to live outward. Call a friend, deliver cookies to a neighbor, or invite a fellow colleague or parent out for coffee. Now is not the time to withdraw or isolate. The days are shorter and darker, literally and figuratively. We need to be a light for each other.
So here I am, checking in with myself and with you to see how we’re all doing. Me? I have moments of outwardness, but secretly I’ve been isolating more and more. I’ve had an inward state of mind. Is this isolation, or emotional regulation? I don’t know, to be honest.
Taking a cue from Nick Cave, I searched for each redemptive and loving act I’m engaged in to keep the devil down in the hole. Upon reflection, here are some of my radical acts of hopefulness:
Gardening. It’s not nothing that I’m making my patch of land beautiful, that I’m bringing things to life, that I’m building community and chatting with my neighbors as they walk by my front yard garden, that I’m sharing plants and receiving gifts of homemade Irish Soda Bread from my neighbor who calls it simply Soda Bread because she’s legit Irish with a cool name and accent and the whole nine yards. It’s not nothing that the fresh air and physical labor keeps my mind and body strong, that working with my hands frees my mind to surface All The Good Ideas. This feels pretty outward to me, so maybe I’m doing alright.
Community fire night. A weekly gathering place for human connection and thoughtful conversations, no strings attached. An open invitation for whomever needs it, trusting that the exact right people show up, whether it’s one or twenty. Okay, so this is also outward. I’m on a roll!
Raising humans that are kind and thoughtful and inclusive. When I look for evidence that my parenting was “successful,” I consider whether our two young adult kiddos are curious, brave, generous, willing to own their mistakes, moving toward independence while also staying connected to community, fun, responsible, and resilient. My kids, and their generation in general, give me hope for the future. Their attunement to The Big Things impacting our world is special, and also tragic because it’s born from coming of age during a digital revolution, a pandemic, identity oppression, and deep political polarization.
Laughing, doing fun things, and making plans for my future. The year Bryan went through cancer treatment, I struggled to make future plans. What if he got too sick? What if he died? If it weren’t for the cancer patient himself pushing us out into the world, I would have allowed myself to become paralyzed by fear. It taught me that even if I don’t know what happens in the future, I need to live in the present. And if I’m going to live in the present, I need to have something to live for. So I will keep hosting fire nights, and keep going to concerts, and continue to support art, and see movies in the theater, and go on vacation, and plan fun things with my friends…because in this political climate, having fun feels adversarial in all the right ways. Fuck you, fascism. I’m having a party and dancing on your grave.
So that’s where I’m at, six months into this whole thing. How about you?
This was a long one. You get five stars for making it to the end! ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Until next time,
Jen
Here’s what else I’m thinking about these days that may turn into a newsletter at some point. Let me know if anything in particular piques your curiosity:
Will radical individualism be our demise?
My relationship to systems of oppression as a financially comfortable white lady
What is my inner code of conduct (with gratitude to
for inspiring this thought exercise)My lifelong struggle against the evangelical christian bubble and authoritarianism in general
The concept of “racial discrimination” against white people is complete nonsense and makes me want to scream into the void
Why are the risk takers in oppressive systems always people who have the most to lose?
How I’ve come to think about when to confront someone or engage in debate, and why
Do you still believe in us?
Valerio’s question and Nick Cave’s full response:
April 2022
Following the last few years I’m feeling empty and more cynical than ever. I’m losing faith in other people, and I’m scared to pass these feelings to my little son. Do you still believe in Us (human beings)?
VALERIO, STOCKHOLM (AND ROME), SWEDEN (AND ITALY)
Dear Valerio,
You are right to be worried about your growing feelings of cynicism and you need to take action to protect yourself and those around you, especially your child. Cynicism is not a neutral position — and although it asks almost nothing of us, it is highly infectious and unbelievably destructive. In my view, it is the most common and easy of evils.
I know this because much of my early life was spent holding the world and the people in it in contempt. It was a position both seductive and indulgent. The truth is, I was young and had no idea what was coming down the line. I lacked the knowledge, the foresight, the self-awareness. I just didn’t know. It took a devastation to teach me the preciousness of life and the essential goodness of people. It took a devastation to reveal the precariousness of the world, of its very soul, to understand that it was crying out for help. It took a devastation to understand the idea of mortal value, and it took a devastation to find hope.
Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard-earned, makes demands upon us, and can often feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on Earth. Hopefulness is not a neutral position either. It is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism. Each redemptive or loving act, as small as you like, Valerio, such as reading to your little boy, or showing him a thing you love, or singing him a song, or putting on his shoes, keeps the devil down in the hole. It says the world and its inhabitants have value and are worth defending. It says the world is worth believing in. In time, we come to find that it is so.
Love, Nick
Read more at The Red Hand Files.
What I’m Listening To
I have not listened to much Nick Cave over the years, but Bryan is a fan and sent me this song awhile back that I now listen to on repeat. In case you’re not familiar with Nick Cave’s story, he lost two sons within seven years to separate tragedies. So, listen to this with that context of grief in mind.
So many wonderful thoughts here to read and digest. And I love your idea of staying “outward” - as an introvert I have felt surprisingly outward these past 6 months and I think it’s because I want to be desperately grounded in reality. I want to hold hands and drink coffee with my favorite people and go on long walks and sit fireside with friends…love your fire nights! I want to develop that inner code and then fight fight fight with all the love I can muster. 💕💕💕 thanks for these reminders and words of wisdom.
I’m right there with you. News (maybe) once a day, and trying not to look at my 401k. Going to shows feels life affirming, and there’s not a whole lot in my life that can’t be solved with a ride around the lake.