As I took in the news of the last week, I spent a couple days soaking in despair. I don’t think anyone noticed—I can keep this stuff pretty inward, and I can numb it with constant input. When I’m anxious about something happening in the news, one way to address my anxiety is to feed it with media about that something. Of course, there are endless sources of anxiety food: articles, podcasts, YouTube videos, Substack essays. You can gorge yourself in all the margins of your time, and I did just that for two full days.
That is a confession, not counsel. To be clear: this way of addressing anxiety is unwise. I know that, and did it anyway.
Then I talked to one of my kids, who was asking questions about ICE’s growing presence in communities nationwide and the killing of Renee Good and how the story is being framed and what’s happening in Venezuela and Are we going to take over Cuba? And also Greenland? and so on. However you personally read or respond to these events, one thing they share is extreme unpredictability, plus a sense that ordinary people like us have no agency over any of it. Systemic volatility seems to be the norm right now, and there’s a sense that we’re caught in a spiral with no end in sight.
But someone I love asking me about these things shakes me out of my fog. I could never say to them: This is hopeless. We are well and truly ruined.
And because I can’t say it, I’m reminded that it’s not what I believe. It cannot be.
We talked about how these kinds of events are not a new normal, and indeed they are not even new. One reason it’s so vital for American students to be educated about America’s many sins of the past is that it helps us see that we’ve always been doing the work of repair. We’ve always had to and always will.
I do think I was honest with my kid that I’m deeply rattled right now. But I also said that I am working my way toward hope. My saying it became true only as I said it. I’d not been feeling hopeful until I was confronted with someone I love who also was not feeling hopeful.
I’ve debated this move with other parents before. Shouldn’t you level with your kids? Shouldn’t you give them sufficient warning about serious trouble when you believe we’re in serious trouble? And if you’re feeling desperate, shouldn’t you be honest with them about that? Aren’t you just pretending to feel better when you really feel despair?
The people we love don’t just hear facts from us—they respond to posture. And as postures go, despair is paralyzing. It renders you stuck, mute, inconsequential. Despair is also isolating. Hope is relational. Hope binds us together, gives us a way to link arms for the road we’re going to keep walking. Despair leads to withdrawal. Hope says our presence and our actions matter, even when outcomes are uncertain.
Hope isn’t a coping mechanism. It’s an ethical stance. It steadies us. If we’re mindful of the bonds we share with the people we love—and indeed with all of our neighbors—I believe we’re obligated to choose hope.
Derek Thompson recently published an essay on his Substack by Nir Eyal about the scientific case for praying whether you believe in the efficacy of prayer or not. Eyal tells the story of a 1950s experiment where a biologist named Curt Richter placed rats in buckets of water to see how long they’d struggle to swim before giving up and drowning. Most died within 15 minutes.
But randomly, Richter saved some rats, rescuing them before they sank into the water. Then he put those rats back to see how long they’d survive. The rescued rats—the ones who now believed rescue was possible—swam for an average of 60 hours.
Richter said the subject of his research was hope and hopelessness. A hopeless rat doesn’t paddle for long. But a comforted rodent who learns “the situation is not actually hopeless [will] become aggressive, try to escape, and show no signs of giving up.” Take two creatures of similar biology and physiology. The one with more hope will fight harder, swim faster, live longer.
Belief doesn’t change physics, of course. Hope does not guarantee survival. But Richter’s experiment suggests that introducing hope into a dangerous environment can extend effort even when the environment is not going to change.
Hope is not denial; it is endurance under pressure. Hope also tells you to stem the tide of those podcasts and constant YouTube videos about the most worrying things in the world. I’ve not done that as completely as I should just yet, but I’ll get there. It’s vital that I do so, because hope is something that has to be practiced for others, even when I’m not inclined to practice it for myself.
Yes, "obligated." Duty-bound. And also, freed to choose hope. Thanks, Patton. You remind me hope makes it all possible.