Belly Button Lint

Feeling Lint-y?

Tag: hope

  • Theme:

    Hope’s Blind Spot

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    Knowledge is often a weight that anchors us to a foregone conclusion.

    When faced with the undeniable facts of systemic collapse or climate change, information leads inevitably to demoralization. To maintain hope, one must deliberately negate the facts—a provisional “what if” that reframes the inevitable into a unique, albeit irrational, possibility.

    This brand of hope operates in a non-space where knowledge is suspended.

    When it succeeds—a political upset or an environmental reprieve—we call it a miracle, an occurrence that defied the data to create a new reality.

    However, the danger lies in drifting too far into this land of manifestation. By collecting miracles and ignoring the “factual world,” we risk undermining the very reality we are trying to save.

  • Theme:

    The Ironist’s Dilemma: Hope

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    The way we raise children is often metaphysical (experience, causality, and time), relegating nominalism (only particular objects exist) and historicism (the past is human nature) to the older or elites.

    Yet, consider that what was once rare has become common, influencing the masses: the privilege of irony and atheism, once the domain of the elite, is now widespread. Today, we realize "-isms" (concepts) are merely shorthand labels, and history is arguable.

    This has turned common sense into nonsense: irony and hypocrisy seem to govern daily life instead of earnest sincerity, moving our irony into the collective and hope into the private home.

  • Theme:

    All Good Things: not compatible

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    By declaring other values “good,” which is itself a value, we conflate and redefine them as familial. At best, they are a dysfunctional group that is variously at odds and antagonistic to each other.

    The optimistic view…that all good things must be  compatible , and that therefore freedom, order, knowledge, happiness…must be at least  compatible , and perhaps even entail one another in a systematic fashion…is not self-evidently true… Indeed, it is perhaps one of the least plausible beliefs ever entertained by profound and influential thinkers.”

    Isaiah Berlin

  • Theme:

    The universal revolutionary impulse

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    Is there a universal thread that unites revolutionary warring factions?

    Viewing revolutionary potential as a shared impulse could reveal an unseen ideology, showing people they are more alike—driven by a craving for change—than opposed. Alternatively, their differences might shrink to mere juvenile angst, maturing into the sublation of antagonism.

    Optimistic, yes, but not without hope.

  • Theme:

    Vaporware into vaporwave

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    Vaporware was technology releases that never came to be, highly promised and loudly touted software and video games that were delayed for years until they dematerialized. Vaporware sold the future before it existed, boosting stock prices on fanciful dreams.

    Vaporwave is a musical style (from about 2010) born from a nostalgia for the 1980s: a disillusioned re-creation of a aesthetic that never existed, at once cynical of the 1980s optimism and perversely sincere in its stylistic adherence. Somewhat techno, somewhat adult contemporary, all muzak, it is intentionally looping and unsettling. As a critique of optimistic, neocon capitalism, it revels in broken promises feeding us back what we loved in fragmented memory form: it is a remembrance of hope, distorted, often cheesy, beautiful and melancholic.

    As we now consume Vaporwave as nostalgia, many of the artists keep the music free, so it cannot be commoditized, attempting to avoid the pitfalls of Vaporwear reselling our dreams.

  • Theme:

    Capitalism requires hope

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    In capitalism, economic salvation is a promise occasionally made good: some small percent miraculously gets rich. For most, it is an illusory pretense, a propagandistic dogma, that hard work will pay off, lifting the poverty-stricken to grace.

    There is a slim chance that it is better than the strict feudal/caste system, except psychologically, where capitalism internalizes the master’s whip: our striving and failures are our faults, our shame. In feudal systems and caste systems, it is systemic fate, not personal failure, that lands you in poverty or wealth.

    The promise of possible wealth (economic salvation) moderates the volatility of a system that also ruins people. Hope fuels the winners, and when it fails, it creates the losers. Either way, hope is an essential fuel for the populace to accept the system and believe its goods outweigh its ills.

    –
    –
    –

  • Theme:

    symbolic to particular

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    Watch the arguments move between symbolic and particular traits: we love the art but abhor the person, OR we love what he/she stands for, so we will excuse their character flaws.

    For instance, when America’s hopes are pinned symbolically on Trump or Biden, we wish for the symbol to overcome personal flaws. (In essence, every universal symbol/signifier is empty and needs to be filled, fleshed out, but the alignment cannot be perfect.)

    To disparage a symbol, we debase the concrete, particular individual’s specific traits, showing the hypocrisy between the symbol and the flesh. Yet, when we must argue for our side, we ignore the specific human and resort to the aligned characteristics.

  • Theme:

    survival requires delusion

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    We are excellent at deluding ourselves, a trait evolved for survival.

    To survive difficult or desperate situations, we manipulate our state of mind: we create hope in the future to offset present misery.

    On the other hand, clear-eyed assessment (i.e., grim realism) is pessimistic and/or cynical, disincentivizing survival by presenting a sober, truthful accounting that the odds are miserable. Our instinct, the survival imperative, encourages us to be irrational and to believe in our exceptionalism, which encourages perseverance against reality.

  • Theme:

    hope is fear in disguise

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    Consider the times you got precisely what you wanted or your fears were made manifest.

    We know this may happen, but you cannot remember even a small fraction of them. Currently, your brain is occupied with your newest worries (catastrophizing) and hopes (fantasy).

    Upon consideration, our hopes for the future are merely a way to displace our fears: hope is an antidote to the uncontrollable present.

    from Sam Harris

  • Theme:

    future hope is a trap

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    We all want something to lean on, if not someone some future plan.

    The problem is, leaning on anything (even hope for the future) keeps you from seeing what you have right now and enjoying it.

    Consider hope as a type of desire. We know from Buddhism desire (wanting) is the root of suffering, but we still want a better future, so we suffer.