Hope

What a queer thing, hope. Hope is the quintessential element required for survival, the one fuel necessary to be propelled forward. Yet this hope is the very thing that permits suffering. We move forward because we hope for something better, believe that whatever we hope for is attainable. And if the thing we chase is unattainable, and we are deluding ourselves the entire time we chase it, then that hope that once acted as motivational fuel now reeks like the gasoline that now blankets us - and all it takes is someone with a match...

So where exactly is the line drawn? What separates hope being that optimistic feeling from being the thing that tortures? God, I wish I knew. Kind of hard to not feel like something's plaything, like it's some kind of hubris to want to rise above one's station in life and be continually disappointed, when one hopes and is not fortunate enough to attain its object. Such is the path of the deluded or the masochistic; such are the comments of the cynic. But hey, the cynic is only someone who stopped chasing the carrot, and now has enough time to point out the folly of those who have not. Can life really be nothing more than deciding between embracing truth and being lonely or having hope as a companion but forfeiting truth? What a terrible decision to make... oh cruel fate.