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A true friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future and accepts you today, just the way you are.--- Anon

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For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.
-Virginia Woolf (1882 - 1941)

Ok. Sex is fine. Sex is good. Sex is GREAT! Okay, okay, we need men for sex... Do we need so many?
-Martin Sage and Sybil Adelman

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.
-Oscar Levant (1906 - 1972)>

Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.
-Timothy Leary (1920 - 1996)

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Fuck vegetarians, all Gods are carnivorous.
-Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

BM Oran & WH Burdine

Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock. Ben Hecht (1893 - 1964)

Let us make one point, that we meet each other with a smile, when it is difficult to smile. Smile at each other, make time for each other in your family. Mother Teresa (1910 - 1997)

You see things;and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, "Why not?" - George Bernard Shaw

At the age of eleven or thereabouts women acquire a poise and an ability to handle difficult situations which a man, if he is lucky, manages to achieve somewhere in the later seventies-PG Wodehouse

If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another chance for you. What we call failure is not the falling down but the staying down. - Mary Pickford

Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first woman she meets and then teams up with three complete strangers to kill again - unknown

The absence of flaw in beauty is itself a flaw. - Havelock Ellis

But when a young lady is a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way. - Jane Austen

Only exceptionally rational men can afford to be absurd. - Allan Goldfein

Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another. Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

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Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Hope and Hopelessness

Paul and I have had quite a few discussions about hope lately. This being the "Season of Hope" I thought I would take a moment to give my personal opinion on the subject.

Basically, I think it is worthless and causes much more pain than it relieves. Don't get me wrong, in certain instances I do think hope can be useful, but usually it is a barrel full of crap that we wish was a barrel full of gold.

My main problem with hope is that the results of it usually hinge on someone else. It seems like you are just setting yourself up for pain. What sane individual does that to themselves?

I would prefer to expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised by anything good. Hope seems like it makes you expect the best, sometimes something way out of reach, usually something that has to be fulfilled by another, and then when it falls short crashes you into the ground. Again, what sane person gets on a roller coaster that they know crashes at the end?

I can see the comments that are coming. "Hope makes us strive for better things." and all other comments along this line. These are not wrong. Hope is a valuable emotion IF the thing you are hoping for is within your personal control! You use hopes to set personal goals. It's a very useful emotion when centered on yourself.

I am only saying that hope is cruel and unusual punishment because too often our hopes are centered on someone or something not in our control.
Our hopes are too often centered on things made to let us down, our kids, our significant others, our political leaders, our society, our friends, and our families.

For example: I had hope (to me this means a reasonable expectation that my desired results could and would come true) that John Kerry would win the election. I was actually extremely disappointed that he didn't. so much so that I am still not over it(even though I don't talk about it anymore cause its over, what can you do) I would rather that I had never expected Kerry to win, and then if he did I would have been pleasantly surprised. The election isn't something that I had control, over. I only had control over my one vote, but I had a lot of hope invested in it.

So I guess what I am saying is that I wish I could give up hope. I would give up the little bit I have for myself in order to give up the completely useless hope I have in everyone else. I am tired of giving others the potential to rip my heart and mind to shreds with this seamingly innocuous weapon.

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Sara needed you at 11:06 AM

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