#102
December 18, 2006
From: Adam Diamond

Stopping in to VP for a hard cider this Fall afternoon. 

I had been vacillating on whether to come on board and say hey ever since before last week's Election Night. Reading Post #98 decided me.

Your more than gracious response to my own rant back in post 79 after the 2004 election came back to me unexpectedly in the days running up to this year's election. I found a printout I had made of my rant and your response while cleaning the house and carried it with me as a talisman against the crippling fear of a repeat disappointment.  I was terrified before the election, but only vaguely cognizant of what exactly I was afraid. Corruption, stolen elections, a continuation of the triumph of the politics of fear and hatred and lies.  What you wrote about hope had to serve as a placeholder for my foundering hope for a few days until the election, which turned out much better than I had been hoping.  So thank you again!

But your response to #98 has given me more food for words, as follows:

—First, I haven't read Tracy Goss' book, but based on your description, I think I've had a similar first reaction to yours.  It just doesn't read for me.  If I'm following you, Goss' point is that acceptance of hopelessness leads to freedom from fear and, as you quoted "...the opportunity, instead of giving up, to play with full engagement..."  But without hope, what motivation does one have to show up in the first place?  Why be fully engaged with no hope?  In other words, if one does not have a 'hope' for a certain outcome in a given endeavor, why bother engaging in the endeavor at all?  What is hope if not inherent motivation, a reason to go on?  Maybe I'm splitting semantic hairs here, but acceptance of life as it is does not require for me letting go of hope.  To let go of hope is, in a strong sense, letting go of life itself.

—Second, but relatedly, you ask "are hope and fear two sides of the same coin?" The metaphor implies that they are opposites, but I don't think that's true - I don't feel that fear is the opposite or absence of hope, or vice versa.  They co-exist, in some cases very closely, but I don't see it as a 1-1 correlation.  While they are sometimes connected, I don't feel that the amount of hope one has directly determines the amount of fear one has (as if one could quantify emotion!)  And I certainly don't believe one must lose hope to conquer fear.  I've seen too many folks conquer fear as a direct result of having hope to believe that. 

—Finally, you ended Pint 98 with a wonderful Castaneda quote, which reminded me that I often use quotes as a source of solace, or joy, or hope.  And one of the more hopeful new quotes I've encountered in the past year, one, in fact, I've often repeated to friends, family, co-workers, goes like this:

     "I still believe in plans, but more and more, I think it's a Plan B world."
                               —Kelley Eskridge

Keep passing the open windows (—John Irving)

Adam D.

Hey Adam,

Lovely to hear from you. I was thinking about you at the elections, as a matter of fact. There was a certain amount of anxiety in our house too…. and at the same time, I believed it would turn out the way it did. Very gratifying, and in some sense so predictable. The wheel turns.

I can recommend the Goss book, if your definition of "recommend" includes wanting to throw a book at the wall but then being compelled to read it again just because…. And I don't think I've represented it accurately (maybe not even coherently). But there is something about it that speaks to me lately.

I don't think it's so much that she is asking people to not bring hope to the party. Or maybe she is asking that—and maybe the real issue is what does each of us mean by hope, anyway? I think she's saying that many people having a notion of hope as a kind of crutch, almost as a blueprint for "here's how my life should be, and I'm going to hold my breath until I turn blue or until my life turns out this way." I think what she's trying to say is that kind of hope can hold us back, because instead of desire without expectation, we tie ourselves to a particular vision of how things should be, and then regard any variance from that as "failure." And then our hope is "lost."

I've been thinking a lot about expectations lately. It's been said that all anger is the result of failed expectations. I know that most personal conflict I've experienced comes down to disappointed expectations—I "expect" that strangers will honor the social compact and not cut me off on the highway, or be rude to me at Starbucks. I expect that my closest people will always be wise, kind, and respectful of my little personal quirks (along with being able to read my mind). Et cetera. I know that my greatest mistakes with other people happen when I write scripts in my head for how things should go in any particular interaction—and then discover, much to my surprise, that everyone else has failed to learn their lines, and in fact aren't acting in my little play at all.

I have not let go of hope—in a big way, I'm all about hope and always will be. But I've been astonished by some of the things I've been able to do in the last year by releasing hope and instead just doing the thing I yearn to do, or the thing that needs to be done (which are sometimes the same and sometimes not). I don't hope for the thing to work out in any particular way. I just do it and see what happens. I don't assume that it's "good" only if it works out the way I want it to. I don't know how to explain it better right now, but it sure is making me think (grin).

I agree that hope and fear are not opposites. And I don't think hope is in any way a bad thing. But I believe that hope gives fear a doorway into our lives. We fear the loss of what we hope for. Is it better sometimes to live without hope? Is it possible to live without hope and at the same time to not be "hopeless"? I dunno (scratches head).

Although, actually, that's not true. I do know, in some ways. I no longer hope for a cure for MS, for example. I look at Nicola and give great thanks for my life with her. I don't look at Nicola and think that if we only do the right thing, make the right choices, if only we are good, that she'll be without MS someday. I no longer regard MS as something that might go away. It never will. Is that hopeless? Or is that simply moving hope out of the way so we can get on with our lives?

This doesn't mean I never hope. I just don't want hope for a particular thing to define my happiness.

I think I'm starting to climb down my own navel here. Apologies. And these are real questions, not rhetorical ones. Comments welcome.

I'm glad you like the Plan B quote. I still stand by it (grin). Here's another one I like:

—Strangely enough, it all turns out well.
—How?
—I don't know. It's a mystery.
         —Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard, Shakespeare in Love

#101
December 3, 2006
From: Candace

Hi, I saw the reply about you and Nic separating and was wondering, what makes your relationship work?  It's very rare to hear about couples succeeding in the long term-and you two still seem very happy, passionate, and seem to genuinely like each other.   Also, (if it's not too personal) I was wondering why you chose not to have children?  By the way, I love both yours and Nicola's work and can't wait until "Always" comes out next April and the "Solitaire" movie is out! Thanks for everything!

Candace

I'm not the goddess of all relationship wisdom (that would be Carolyn Hax). I don't know that I have anything profound to say about it except that we love each other and we make it work. And that I think most of the credit belongs to Nicola.

There's a story in a book called Fierce Conversations about a "typical marriage" (Is there such a thing? Who knew?) in which a husband wonders why his wife keeps wanting to talk about their relationship all the time. Couldn't they just have one giant conversation about it every once in a while and move on? And then it finally occurs to him that the conversation isn't about the relationship: the conversation is the relationship.

Nicola and I have a lot of conversations. Some are more fun than others. Some are very, very hard, but I know down to my toes it is better to have them than to keep silent. Knowing this has changed my criteria for important relationships. I don't offer intimacy of any kind to people who aren't willing to have the conversation.

We don't have children because Nicola has multiple sclerosis, and because we decided that we would rather focus on taking care of each other than taking care of a child. I believe if we had a child, I wouldn't have much of a life right now beyond service to the needs of others, and that's not enough for me. Nicola and I would maybe not have had time for all those conversations (and beer, and writing, and exploring, and adventures…). I don't regret any of that. I do occasionally mourn the lack of relationship with a teenage and adult child – I think I'd have enjoyed that very much, found it very rewarding. No choice without loss.

We're looking forward to Always (a fun, fine, fierce book, wonderful stuff). And wouldn't it be fun to have the lights go down and Solitaire come up? I get a lot of pleasure imagining it….