I woke up at 1PM yesterday, and the first thing I hear in consciousness is Kayley Williams singing about how if she could "pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars", and how she could really "use a wish right now." It's not the best thing to wake up to in the morning, especially on days when you've remembered how although you have to live with the decisions you've made, you'll always for at least a singular moment wish you could turn back time. The fact of the matter is, it's easier to want to undo past mistakes than to hope for a better future.
Before I go on any further then, I'd just like to give a shout out to my neighbor, the pubescent pseudo cool kid: Fuck You and your BOB feat. Hayley Williams mp3. You're the cause of half of today's crushing hopelessness and soul searing depression. Thank You!
The irony of hope is that it is anchored so strongly on a notion of belief in humanity's capability. A doctor's skills give hope to a dying man, a professor's knowledge gives hope to an ignorant student, a stranger's kindness gives hope to a downtrodden victim, or a mother's love gives hope to a wounded child. In truth, how much of man's capability can I truly trust? It's nice to read and discuss how utopian a religious humanistic ethical world would be, that there is no need to fear the future because we have been equipped by a higher power with the tools to navigate the unknown, where even if the doctor's skills fail the dying man, there is always the possibility of a medical researcher finding a better cure, or a better doctor with better skills, and when all else fails we believe in the love of a divine to guide us through troubling times, and at the last moment, we believe the divine will lead us to paradise. This religious humanistic outlook seems so beautiful, but there is always the possibility that prior to the last moment, no one is truly there for me in times of despair, neither researcher, doctor, nor God.
My problem is that in this view where most people see God as the focal point of hope, where most pray for help, knowing to themselves that they can be helped by grace or divine intervention, and through this they are able to believe in human capability graced by God. They believe in the doctor's skills, or the researchers talents only through the looking glass of a "graced by the divine." The problem being that they set a dichotomy to human capability. If their prayers are answered, whether by profound or profane means, it was the will of God. God chose to heal the dying man. We can hope in God. If the dying man died, whether by human error or natural cause, then either it was the will of God, or there is the despair alternative which brings about the valid question, "why would God not heal this dying man, but He would save others?" Couldn't it be the case that it was merely nature, unadulterated natural law, combined with the skills of the practitioners that calculated the chance of survival of the dying man? It makes more sense. It's the same equation, except without the "will of God" component at the end. It makes more sense that those who didn't die aren't alive because of God's random action, rather the random coming together of variables that determined whether he lived or died. The previous "will of God" assumption states that the Divine is random. Saying that random healing is part of His plan would be ridiculous because there is no definitive pattern, unless He is meddling in human history, and is thus meddling in free will. The Divine cannot be random. If God is playing human lottery, he is divorcing us from our individual traits, treating us like a faceless crowd. There is no love in that, no cura personalis. If God is love, then the God of random healing is not my God.
With that in place, wouldn't it be better to assume that God left us in a dynamic world to work with ourselves along with others? When I say with others, does that mean that I can still hope in the capability of others? My problem again though is how to trust the others. Humankind is as dynamic as the world he lives in. There are a million ways to answer a single question when humanity doesn't limit itself. The problem is, sometimes there is only one right answer. Aside from the obvious fact that in the case of the dying man, the doctor has the capability to take care of the dying man, there is only one correct path to keeping him alive, and a million other ways to lead him to his death. One question yields a million possible answers, one path is a series of critical questions. The statistics seem to be against life.
I'll stop at that for now so I can return to how this has anything to do with my current situation. I am at that crossroad where I realize that the previous decisions I have made have led me to be someplace I did not expect to be. I can do nothing but live with whatever lays ahead of me, but the road forks out some more. I am afraid because so far I haven't been making the right decisions. I don't trust myself. I degress. I sit on the road, close my eyes, and pray. I pray He leads my way, although I don't really believe he should.
My prayer is an airplane.
Divine intervention is my shooting star.
I could really use a wish right now.
The problem with my belief is that the shooting star can never be there. It can never exist. I hope someone else understands how hopeless that makes me. I am desolate. I am in decay. I cannot hope. I can only do the best I can. I can only hope in death. In death, my God has me in his arms, and I need not worry.
