Hope... (fragment iii)

Tomorrow, like walking towards the horizon, recedes as we approach.

In (fragment ii)I've started outlining hope as a friendly attentive spirit, ushering in the 'possibility of life' - open to the renewal a new dawn brings. It is the idea that life is a gift, given rather than willed into existence.?

The challenge I see in Hope is being present to what is while giving care to the quality of our attentive perception of the future - to become aware of how our cognitive perceptual system, interacts and participates with what is received.

Our mindful awareness reminds us of how much we take for granted, and how much is given. The given thoughts that arise in our mind, the given mood we find ourselves in and the given situation unfolding.? Hope acknowledges the givenness of life in the hope that life will continue to give us what we need.? It is how we manage to open up in dark times.? How we open up to receive love, light and beauty in this world.

Tim Ingold sees the two sides of attention as:

• Attunement - attuning to what is already waiting for us in the world to attend to, to notice what it affords us and being able to refine through experience those affordances. (see also J.J. Gibson on Affordances)
• Exposure - is a state of being pulled out of position, ourselves needing to wait for an aspect to be fully revealed to us or in us.

I am exploring attention metaphorically as a type of aperture to regulate our exposure.

Hope (in contrast to fear) stimulates the opening of our attention to continue being exposed despite the momentary doubt, disorientation and despair that may creep in. Fear tends to stimulate a move to closure for self-preservation.

As we are bent out of position during periods of exposure,? life may feel much more like an undergoing than an understanding.? This is not a pleasant experience and reminds us of ‘negative capability’ (fragment i) where a mind is capable of being in a state of uncertainty, doubt and mystery.? It is being open, to allow the exposure of the moment to continue to form and reveal new insight and learning.

In seeking premature closure and safety we may reach for fantasy, facts, and previously formed thought patterns that can comfort us.?

This means I am not going through a phase of learning but rather trying to demonstrate what ‘I know’?or what I want to conserve.

If I am being honest, I much prefer demonstrating how smart I am, than going through the pain of uncertainty, doubt and vulnerability required of learning. So it is only after the failure of my demonstration, that I find myself exposed out of a secure position, potentially receptive to learning something new.

I say potentially because here hope and fear play out very differently for me.? In a spirit of hope, I can open up again to the threatening unknown to attend anew…?

In hope - I transcend my own self-image that is currently under threat - to open up to a larger meaning, purpose or significance.

?I can hope as an act of self-transcendence rather than a need for self-preservation or self-interest.? Hope as a virtue of self-transcendence we will explore later in fragment iv.

There may be reason for self-preservation and thus fear is a perfectly natural response.? However in some cases, I may realise - what I am seeking to preserve is not me as a living body, but more an idea of self, an image, fantasy or even an illusion of self.? When these perceptions are threatened it is often an opportunity to open up to learning or close and try to fortify my sense of self.

I still find comfort in reaching some sort of narrative or emotional closure and unity.?

I wonder if what I truly hope for, is unification. Be it with Nature, Unified Consciousness, the Cosmos or what some may consider God.? A view beautifully articulated by the Oneness Hypothesis, that the self is inextricably linked to a larger whole.? A more relational view of self, in a flux of ‘inter-being’.??

From this relational perspective, self-interest should naturally expand in ever greater relations with others.? From this view, a narcissist is someone with a narrow self-interest closed and indeed trapped within themselves cut off from appropriate relating.

Martin Buber defined this relational view as the difference between an I-it relationship and an I-Thou.? An I-it relationship is trapped in self-preservation mode where our relating closes into objects for transactional use rather than relating as openings and passageways into deeper understanding, compassion and interlinking of life.

Ironically this trapped self-preservational mode of survival lacks hope.

In other words, the self-preservation mode lacks the pathways to renewal, for it lacks the pathways to communion and community. (common-unity)

It lacks the core tenet of Gabriel Marcel:

I hope in thee for us.

Not to place your hope in an object or even objective outcome but rather in an open state of hopefulness in a person (Thou) to allow our inter-being to flourish.

In this way, I think we can try to notice how our fears close us off from each other and hope can restore our open relationship to our mutual future, which we cannot reach but can attend to with an invigorating spirit.