Hope is Thinking Your Own Joy Matters

I just watched Little Miss Sunshine. It's a fantastic movie. And it's all about hope. Ok. Love and hope. Both.

Do you remember hope?

I just started getting to know a really smart and wonderful man. He invents things. He does art. He knows people who make movies. He seems to still have hope.

Here's how I think about hope . . .

Hope shows up when you fearlessly make something just because it interests you and you don't second guess it and you don't tell yourself you are only being dumb and it will only turn out stupid and what the hell were you thinking.

Hope appears when you think something actually might change.

Hope encourages us to embrace that change.

Hope happens when you don't automatically distrust everything someone is saying.

Hope is when you try to learn and change and try and embrace and start something uncomfortable and step out into the light and see that you were all once in the cave.

Hope is thinking that your own joy matters.

I haven't had hope in years.

And I don't think I'm wrong. Not really. Not actually. Fundamentally and at the very base of my being, I don't have hope anymore. I wish I did. But I don't.

And every day, when I wake up and when I'm trying to sleep, I would like to think I might be wrong.

Here is this guy . . . who obviously has been around and seen . . . he's not naïve. He definitely has a DEEP edge that I haven't yet discovered. Very edgy. But he still has hope. How did he do that? He thinks art matters. He reads the New Yorker. He knows film makers. He invents things. He does interviews on Wisconsin Public Radio.

I think nothing matters and that all people will eventually disappoint you and that you can trust nothing because nothing is true. I think we spend our lives fighting and struggling against everything, hopefully we find a way to self medicate, and then eventually . . . we'll all die . . . alone. Thank God. So what does it matter? Why try? Why think and try and feel when all of it is for naught?

Yet, here is this man. Right in front of me. Fascinating the fuck out of me . . . because he's smart enough to see and STILL he manifests hope.

I gave him a Christmas card and he said it was beautiful. It was a little, white, pop-up house. And he was so taken with it, he called it beautiful.

Oh. Holy. Heavens.

Here is a man who can still see a pop-up house Christmas card as beautiful.

He still can be delighted by the little ingeniouses.

Oh. Holy. Heavens.

Could this he be real?

Could he still have seen, and continue to know . . . but still find hope?

Could the same be true for me?

Observations From the Field

I really am starting to feel like I'm watching the animals in the jungle this season.

These guys I know . . . I drink with them in a lounge upstairs periodically. Last night they were celebrating. Their boss arrived, two of them are leaving on Monday and they finished their first hole. And, consequently, it was Saturday. I joined them early in the evening.

The lounge where we gather is actually the game room. There's a pool table, a ping pong table, a sink and a fridge. There are two small sofas for sitting, a random hard chair or two, a tall bar stool and two buckets. Needless to say, when the place gets rocking, seats are at a premium. Of course, there has developed a kind of social understanding about the chairs. Girls are always offered a seat and always get their seats back. It just seems to be a gentlemanly thing these guys will do. (Usually I am one of maybe two girls in the room, so it isn't really a sacrifice). Guys have to jockey for a seat and will almost always lose it if they stand up. They can, however, invoke the three second rule if they are getting up for more beer. But, if they wander off to the bathroom, or to get more ice, or to change the music, or to play a game of pool, some other guy slithers in and stays. We all share this understanding.

Last night started with the regulars. We were all there relating to each other in the way we have all agreed to . . . knowing the familiar rules, jokes, and tendencies. Everyone in their places, enjoying the evening. Some came and went. Others left to grab dinner before it ended and came back. After everyone was reassembled, and after several beers and bottles were empty, The Boss arrived. He had just flown in that morning. He seemed jet laggy and tired. He was given a seat on one of the couches.

And it was interesting.

These guys know their Alpha Monkey. They faun on him, and laugh at his jokes and are all very happy when he's around. He seems like a jovial man, but I have never been all that impressed, and from what I know about him (left his wife, is dating a co-ed who works for him at the University, golf), I'm of the opinion he's kind of a regular, average, businessman putz.

He knows me very slightly. We had a few interactions many years ago when I was still scheduling. Last night he politely attempted to make conversation about an old acquaintance, who I definitely thought was a putz. He tried to introduce me to some of the guys in the room . . . with whom I have been dining and drinking for over a month. He was kind of awkward. But, you know, he's new in the room. And he doesn't seem to know that I go back with some of these guys.

The different conversations continued to burbled up and I was talking with Red or Al or someone, and suddenly The Boss stood up and started to undo his pants. The reaction of the crowd was rather shocked and boisterous. The Boss said, "I don't want to lose my seat," and he continued to take off his pants, down to his long johns. Then he took off his long johns, down to his tightie whities (which no man should ever wear, let alone brandish in the middle of the lounge). The howling of the crowd continued as several scrambled for cameras. And then he put his pants back on and sat down.

He was too hot. And he didn't want to lose his seat.

But, it was also the most spectacular display of the Alpha Monkey. Talk about making sure his generals and all the women in the room knew he had a dick -- he almost literally took it out and waved it around. He was socially uncomfortable. He arrived late and he noticed that his generals had sorted out a social order that didn't include him. He couldn't impress the ladies in the room (myself and one of our cooks, who just is not going to be impressed with his sort), and he was losing the attention. Boom. He took all the focus back, showed he was "fun-loving," "bold," "unconventional." He redefined the social order and became, once again, the center of everyone's attention.

It was astonishing.

I have never seen a grown monkey behave in such a blatant way.

Spectacular.