SING HOPE

True fatalism requires silence.  True nihilism seeks oblivion.  I have to take that to mean, then, that the pessimistic news columns and prophecies of destruction are voices raised in fear against the forces of life.  After all, if there is no turning back from ecocide-why waste time talking?  Why not just sit in the sand and enjoy these last sunsets?   If there is no hope for a better system, why feel angry at corruption, greed and power-mongering?  Why not just bow beneath your shackles and submit to reality?

Ulysses wanted to hear the voices of sirens, but he respected their power over his imagination, so he had himself tied to his mast-a way to hear without being carried away; because voices are powerful.  They enter our brains with feeling, personality and ideas.  Without restraints, without tying ourselves to some inner mast, they can call us to our own demise.   If we begin to believe that panic and anger are the truth, rather than hearing voices of fearful souls seeking to deny destruction or vulnerability, we risk falling under the spell of the powers of vandalism and degradation.  

If we hear souls speaking, and if we realize the apocalypse suggests itself only against some idea of supposed to be, neither fate nor emptiness can be the truth.  Fear only exists because of hope.  That being the case, I can sing against fear.  I can close my eyes, tied to the mast, and commit to hope instead.  I can raise my voice so the sirens know I am out there, waiting for their worst and unafraid.   I can join my own ululations,  and in the same frenzy of speaking say: transformation and creation; change and possibility; something new; something good.

Sing hope, even if it comes out as a scream.  You may hear fear, but do not mistake it for the truth.  Do not give it power.  It is a small and shivering thing that holds itself tight against the dark.  Find a friend.  Bang a drum and raise a ruckus.  Blaze out the truth that tomorrow comes, and that whatever else it brings, it contains hope and possibility.  After all, if all the lights do go out tomorrow, we'll only be proven wrong, but no one will be around to know it.