Hope only breeds despair

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Cynicism prevents hurt feelings. At least when you're as hypersensitive as me. But you need to try things even if they are difficult, because there's no way you're going to advance in your life if you don't.

Yeah, I'm a dreamer as much as I hate myself for it. Individuals with imagination and creativity can at times get big aspirations and then reality hits and its like going straight up and then down emotionally. Mostly my self-worth is shot to pieces by undependable people, my own failures, as well as reclusion from other humans. I feel very alien when outside of a computer environment now. I don't expect others to understand or that want to understand the world I live in. At the best of times I am supportive and try to be a listening ear for those who will listen. Also I am a person who likes to enjoy life and not have it be a pain in the ass.

I often ask my friends about things and just try to be there. I like to think of myself as a sergeant in a squad, I'm the most senior member amidst the group and I'm willing to listen to the other guys if they have problems. If I have a solution I can try to offer advice but if I don't I acknowledge their frustration at the problem and offer empathy. I take charge only when needed, otherwise I like to let the others try to give some direction and leadership only intervening when the situation (like a game we are playing in) absolutely needs guidance and no one else is measuring up.

The role I find myself in where I am comfortable is support. I prefer to support others so that they can reach the best of their ability. But even I have my limits at times, even supports need to be supported too. I guess thats where I feel I really am lacking. I don't have support to keep my chin up when I go down and when I go downhill emotionally it gets ugly if my previous posts and threads are any indication. At my worst I am despairing and often question why I even bother living on.

A thought just occurred to me, perhaps thats why I seek death. Because a dreamer can't stop dreaming, its sub-conscious or just part of who I am. The result therein is that I end up wanting to die because I want these dreams to stop. To crush my own hopes, therein making myself my own worst enemy because it contradicts what comes natural. Creating a conflict within thats just killing me on the inside. Its like your heart (metaphorically speaking in terms of emotion) is getting torn up inside because a part of you doesn't want the dream to die and yet my logical side keeps pointing out the facts that say the dream is impossible and you should stop bothering with it.

To put it simply, the logical adult is trying to strangle the inner child with facts and logic. The child wants to keep dreaming and hope that those dreams come true.

Something has to give, either total annihilation which destroys everything (IE kill yourself thus ending the internal conflict) or something changes which will either push for one side or the other.

It's hard to let all hope go. I haven't succeeded yet but I'm working on it. I don't want to keep worrying about the future, I just want to live day to day. With a planning, but without huge goals to work to. And as for people, well... I don't like being 100% alone, but at the same time, people keep disappointing me. I don't think I can give up hope when it comes to people. I need one or two good friends to talk to every now and then. Although things like forums might do as well... unsure.

Of course despair also breeds despair.

The broad statement that "hope breeds despair" is true within certain limitations. It is also false under some different situations.

Maybe it is better to say "Misplaced hope breeds despair." Or perhaps, "Hope without balance breeds despair."

Small, realistic hopes can be pleasurable and can prompt you to take useful action. This can lead to actual accomplishments. Big hopes that ignore reality can lead to deep disappointment.

In my case, I had written a short script about a year ago and as I considered shooting it, I could only see where I would likely fail. Here I had little hope for it. A friend pushed me to shoot the thing despite my fears and as it happened, the shoot went well and I'm happy with how the film is coming. I now have hope that it will turn out to be an entertaining little film and might get into a few festivals. Nothing grand, but with a little effort, it might get seen and appreciated. It will not launch me into some great career as a film maker, but I might get a few nice compliments.

But if I had hoped that if I shot this film, I would become some great, successful film maker, I would have set myself up for a huge failure.

More to the point, if I had remained fixated on the assumption that the film would not work no matter what, I never would have shot it and I never would have had the pleasure of seeing it become the film I had envisioned when I wrote it.

Yes, hope can breed despair, but it can also breed action and success. It is important to recognize when your hopes are overshooting reality and to not allow a few unrealistic hopes to kill the realistic ones.

Lars