Another shot of hope, please . . .

2/01/03 @ 10:55 PM

A friend of mine sent me this rough outline of a poem:

I can either sit at home and hope
for things that I will never be
or will never happen
or give up
close the shades on the windows of my soul
the only drug I know
do I dream of hope?  - Brian Walker

What struck me about this was the metaphore of hope as a drug.  Many years ago (pre-PETA) I heard or read about an expiriment where two groups of rats were placed in tanks of deep water. One group could not see anything that resembled a way out, while the other could see 'land', but could not reach it. Both groups eventually drowned, but the group that could at least see land survived significantly longer than the group that couldn't.

We have a true dependence on hope.  We need it.  However seemingly insiginificant that hope may be, we cling to it with everything we've got.  What other reason is there to get up in the morning, save hope?   And yet some hopes, like the image of land, are nothing more than hallucinations - pipe dreams that will never be realized.  How do we recognize which of our hopes have potential?  

They say it's not the destination, but the journey.   If, at the end of our journey, we find ourselves drowning next to a glass wall, will the journey really be any consolation?