In addition to bearing witness to the horrors of our world, we can also pay attention to the things that are going right.Mike Hewitt/Getty Images
Andrea Curtis’s latest book is The Story and Science of Hope.
The day last fall when Donald Trump was re-elected president, I was in England. It felt strange and irresponsible to be away from home on that era-defining day. But we were in Oxford, and had planned a visit to the august Bodleian Library, one of the oldest repositories of thinking and ideas in Europe. And there, in that wood-panelled bibliophile’s dream, surrounded by some 13 million printed items, books and papers written by thinkers for more than 1,000 years, I experienced something that resonates with me still.
It was a feeling, a deep-in-my-bones understanding that this moment we are in – as dire as it sometimes feels – is, relatively speaking, a historical blip. There have been tyrants and despots and petty dictators before and there has also been resistance, people and movements fighting for what’s right, working together to push for change that benefits everyone. And the thought of this continuum made me feel both less far from home and more hopeful.
It also made me wonder what else makes me hopeful. To be honest, I resisted a bit at first. A notion often associated with religious faith or, worse, toxic positivity, hope has had a bad rap. It can seem unserious in the middle of climate disaster, war, death and destruction to talk about something so tender. Hope, I worried, was a naive response to the continuing chaos of our world. Anyone who is hopeful in the face of this moment is probably either deeply privileged and oblivious to their privilege, or willfully disengaged.
It’s a notion that’s amplified every day in the media that I consume where conflict and the problems of the world are the focus. If it bleeds, it leads. Rage bait is king. Serious people pay serious attention to the problems that plague our planet. In fact, among my friends and family – people who care deeply about the Earth and its inhabitants and worry about the future – it can sometimes feel as if looking away, even for a moment, is an abdication of responsibility. For isn’t it our job as concerned citizens to bear witness to the atrocities of our fellow creatures, to staggering inequalities, to war and murder and mayhem of all sorts? Isn’t that how we both acknowledge other people’s suffering and also move to end it?
Yes.
And the necessity of such constant vigilance is also a story we’ve told ourselves. A story about how, through our vigilance, we keep the worst possible disasters at bay. Except, of course, it doesn’t, and this kind of vigilance can also give way to despair and withdrawal, which surely doesn’t help anyone.
Young Canadians’ happiness has nosedived. They’re coping by redefining a meaningful life
A few years ago, a friend (perhaps worried about my vigilance), suggested I should check out a magazine based in Britain called Positive News. The magazine calls itself the first media organization in the world “dedicated to quality, independent reporting about what’s going right.”
I was skeptical, figured it was cheerleading Pollyanna stuff or, worse, propaganda. But I’ve added it to my reading pile, and found myself pleasantly surprised to see articles on climate innovations, community conservation projects, renewables, river bathing, repair cafés, art and people who are creating connections with each other and the Earth. It’s rigorous, relevant and extremely hopeful.
It sent me on a mission to look for other sources of hope, and I found renewed resolve in rereading Rebecca Solnit’s beautiful genius Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities, published first back in 2004 on the outset of another war and another disheartening American presidency. I found hope, too, in artists and musicians and writers digging deep into their creative soil, making art in defiance of prescription and prohibition. I sought out stories about scientists helping revive ecosystems and activists fighting book banning and deportations, people marching against cutbacks to our most marginalized neighbours, against war and famine and the eradication of women’s reproductive rights.
Actively seeking out these hopeful stories and actions forced me to reconsider my responsibilities as a concerned citizen. Perhaps in addition to bearing witness to the horrors of our world, we can also pay attention and engage with the things that are going right. Perhaps we can also choose hopefulness.
Andrea Curtis: My greatest pandemic discovery has been finding the wild in the city
But what exactly are we talking about when we talk about hope? It turns out that scientists – from behavioural psychologists to nurses and neurosurgeons, economists, educators and social workers – have been studying the subject for decades. Through rigorous research and experimentation, these hope theorists have found that hope is not magical thinking but is, instead, real and measurable. It’s different from optimism, which is a feeling that things are likely to work out. Hope is about leaning into and working toward something meaningful to you. It’s an action. Hope is a verb.
Scientists have found that hope is not magical thinking but is, instead, real and measurable.DANIEL LEAL/Getty Images
These researchers have also found evidence that hopefulness guards against depression and helps kids do better in school. Hopeful people live longer, are healthier and have stronger friendships. One of the most exciting elements of the research is that hope isn’t something you’re simply lucky enough to be born with or not – it can be learned and nurtured. Even people who’ve experienced unspeakable trauma, dislocation and loss feel hope, and can be supported to experience greater hopefulness, with all its myriad benefits.
At Hope Studies Central, an interdisciplinary research unit at the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Education, researchers have created resources that support teachers to incorporate hope-building activities into their classrooms. Art, music, dance, books, being in nature and talking and listening to others builds hope. Hope Studies academics are also working with teachers themselves to help educators develop hopefulness so they might meet the demands of the children they serve.
As the second term of the Trump presidency approaches its second long year, as disasters mount on so many fronts, the massive issues we face as a planet have not lessened. My own hope flickers and ebbs daily.
But despair and paralysis seems like a poor option indeed. In fact, I’ve become convinced that actively looking for hope – whether it’s in news stories or nature, in innovative people and organizations, in individual acts or mass marches, in a child’s face or a community garden – is not an abdication of responsibility or an act of naiveté, but a radical act of resistance. It is an end in itself and also a shoring up of resources for the struggle ahead.
Hope is not about avoiding the difficult realities of the world. It’s not about individual comfort. In fact, it exists alongside deep discomfort. It grows in community and it demands much of us. It demands, first of all, that we shift the narrative away from the sense that we are helpless in the face of forces beyond our control – even though it sometimes feels that way. After all, nothing good ever happened in the world without hopeful people coming together to push for change.