The NYTimes article I quoted in the last post about fruitless hope and its ill-effects made me want to distinguish that sentiment from something else that also goes under the title of hope.
I remember having lunch about six years ago with a German diplomat and friend. He was very skeptical about the latest plans for Mid East peace and suggested people were basically giving lip service to something that they were not planning to do anything to realize.
I was actually very taken aback. To me, the talking points according to which I was working still had a significant kernel of substance.
It was important for me to explain that neither I nor anyone I knew were just biding time with excuses. In fact, none of us would still be involved if there were actually no trajectory - realistic even if difficult - that would lead to peace.
Yes, it was unlikely that xx and yy would happen making zz concessions possible, and aa outcomes probable. Nevertheless it was that path to which we were totally committed and doing what was in our power to realize. And we needed friends like him on board since any real move forward would require understanding and concessions on both side, and our credibility with the other was limited.
Maybe he had been in the field too long, but I'm not sure I convinced him of anything other than my own naïveté.
And now, having been in the world a few years longer, I also wonder myself. I wonder about how realistic I was, how clearly I was seeing.
But I don't wonder about the principle. "Hope" in this constellation, meant a possible if not probable way forward that was better than the present situation. That sort of hope, I retain, is totally crucial. It's not all that different from attainable dreams, inspired ideas or innovations.
It is different from the "hope" in the NYTimes because it is not a way of seeing the present (gratitude is that), but rather of contemplating the many possibilities of the future and picking a best.
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