Hope

I have been made aware by the internet that it is Mental Health Awareness Month. Audiode Fifty Two, which is largely an interview with a beautiful earthbound human being named Bobby Jo Valentine, is aware of mental health. There is so much to share and discuss on this topic that I had to upload it in two parts. Bobby and I only scratch the surface, but I hope we scratch it without shame or stigma. The conversation will continue. My friend Leigh Ann killed herself earlier this year. Can you even begin to imagine how much she must’ve been hurting? I wish I could’ve been with her when she was in the midst of that pain. I don’t know if I could’ve said anything that would’ve helped or provided any kind of comfort or understanding that would’ve helped her get through, but I wish I could’ve tried. It gets bad, but it gets better? I could’ve sang my song, but I know Leigh Ann knew that song and it didn’t matter. So what does matter? Hope. Hope matters. And this morning the YouTube robot delivered me a Cornel West lecture from 4/27/01 and he says it better than I ever could:

Hope is not the same thing as optimism. Never confuse or conflate hope with optimism. Hope cuts against the grain. Hope is participatory. It’s an agent in the world. Optimism looks at the evidence and sees whether it allows us to infer that we can do X or Y. Hope says I don’t give a damn I’m gonna do it anyway…And of course if you are a prisoner of hope you will be wrestling with despair. He or she who has never despaired has never lived. You don’t know what it is to be human if you have never wrestled with despair. But never allow that despair to have the last word.