Living without Hope by Angela Grant
Living without hope
And living without expectations
Simply waiting for my time
No longer wanting and needing and caring
Cause I am living without hope
Just living without hope
And having nothing to lose
Gone are feelings passions and fears
No longer wanting and needing and caring
Cause I am living without hope
Life without a future…
Contrary to popular belief, it’s high time for people to understand that hope is debilitating, because hoping for something to happen is waiting for someone else to do something to make your life better. Living without hope gives you a chance to finally do something yourself, dammit!
It’s a strange experience to have your feelings and emotions absent from your body…. It’s kind of fancy free and footloose what do I have to lose? That is when life on this earth becomes less important…. Sounds morbid but true
Doesn’t sound morbid, and it’s not true. Not having anything to lose, makes you ready for action to win. Well….um……if you want to win something that is. I mean, the win/lose concept is a crappy one you know? Ask Chip the Smart One, hehe.
I don’t think you understand. I made a conscious decision: I want no part of this…. Yes Joe, I will dig my hole and live in peaceful isolation, go underground, then I’m really invisible and no one can label me.
There are not too many people I like anymore in the real world… And I have no desire to be around anyone excluding friends and my children. It’s not all depression, it is disappointment and disillusionment with Society… I found out I can work my ass off and have three men take all the credit, exclude me, and have an entire school turn a blind eye, having the audacity to call me a troublemaker non-team player while they root for me to be good girl.
Where was the care and compassion after I broke my jaw and mouth was wired shut… It was as if they were waiting for the perfect moment to strike to put their feet on my back…
I apologize for the rant I didn’t mean to go off topic.
To hell with the topic. It’s not a rant, but a picture of your reality. And the great thing is, you discovered that too many people are only posing as a colleague and/or a friend, with different agendas, violating your expectations of what they should have been. Now they’re exposed, you know you don’t want them around you. Next step: Get rid of the influence they still seem to have on your emotions, feelings and wellbeing. They are not your people! So make them small. And after that, even smaller. Because that’s their reality. They’re small people. Then forget them, and enjoy the company of those who stand by and with you. Yes, we do exist, and you can trust us, as we trust you too. Again, embrace the Hebrew quote I posted in this thread a few minutes ago.
You are right. When I look at it like that it makes it much easier to walk away…
I love knowledge about people…
Yes it does make you ready for action. Some people commit legalized suicide by putting themselves in harms’ way–they have death wishes and they’re ready for action.
Yes I too am ready for action because I don’t have anything to lose…. Somehow that scares me…. Because all the shit here in this life no longer seem important….
I couldn’t disagree more. What is the alternative? Living without hope? Why not slip the barrel in your mouth right now? Become a hermit in a cave somewhere? Whittle on a stick for days, smiling and being happy? If you’re not willing to invest at least some hope others then you’ve already given up on the human race and I refuse to do that. To give up on the human race and focus strictly on the self is a kind of hope. A hope that those in charge will go ahead and push the button that ends it all.
Then you can say, “See? I told you so.”
Hope that others will listen, think, understand…That isn’t debilitating. That’s making a decision to try and influence others, to give life meaning to all.
Hope isn’t debilitating. If you choose it to be, it’s empowering. Giving up on hope seems to me to be the height of narcissism.
In and of itself, the poem is moving, touching…and a glimpse into a single frame of a person’s emotions and reasoning. A single frame that is transitory and can change.
If it’s meant to be a permanent philosophy on our life and our thoughts on how others will continually play a part in it…
Excuse me, I can beat myself up enough without additional help. But once I’m done, I lace the gloves back on and step back out in the ring.
Not willing to do that? Okay. Fair enough. Your choice.
But not mine.
I respect your disagreement on this matter and you do make valid points.
However, hope is a feeling that has nothing to do with reality. Hope only leads to disappointments.
Rambling, rambling, and rambling some more. I didn’t expect you to agree with me Mr. Martin. On the contrary. So by all means, keep on hoping. Of course, for the best. Whatever that is, lol. Well, most of the time it’s kind of a sugar coated fake carrot held in front of you by a tyrannical world healer, silly guru, or some deranged authority figure strutting around as The Leader amidst his/her worshippers hoping great things will bestowed upon them in a future that will never come. Religions are great at that too. Yeah, salvation is on its way, and the Promised Land is just around the corner or a little bit over the next horizon. Keep your hopes up people, we’re almost there. Yes, almost. So relax, chill, wait, suffer just a little bit more, pray that your enemies stay in good shape, be patient, and your reward will be huge.
But wait, what did you just say, Mr. Martin? You’ll “lace the gloves back on and step back out in the ring.”? Hoping you will win this time? Do you know how to fight then? Or are you a modern day Don Quichotte, determined to go for it, hoping for the best, then biting the dust? No? You’re the real thing? A warrior even? Well in that case, lemme give you some free advice:
1) Forget about those silly gloves, as they only will protect your opponent.
2) End the fight before it starts.
“End the fight before it starts?” Sorry, not going to happen. But you suggest by not fighting I am following a “sugar coated fake carrot held out before me?” And then you take it even further by tenuously attaching me to religion when in actuality I’m agnostic. Even at that, you push it beyond reason by intimating I follow a tyrannical world healer, silly guru or deranged authority figure.
You have no idea who I am, what I believe, or even how I believe Roald, and for you to make those assumptions about me without even considering the possible perspectives that go with my statements only demonstrates your own lack of intellect and your own insecurity in engaging in an intellectual discussion about the issue. I disagree, so you attack. That is very evident in how your post begins: by accusing me of rambling.
Smacks of a lack of maturity, to say the least. But I will address that towards the end of this “rambling.”
I follow no one and fight for no one but my own feelings, beliefs and convictions. If that happens to be fighting for others at the same time, so be it. For you to presume that I follow other entities is either arrogance or pretentiousness on your part.
And for you to attempt to engage in an exchange of ideas by immediately labeling mine as “rambling” only shows your own insecurity and ability to discuss topics logically and intellectually.
To put it simply so you will understand: I say I don’t give a rat’s ass if I’m the only one fighting for a belief if it is my belief. I will not stop fighting just because IT IS my belief and an army of others might oppose it. I won’t roll over or prostrate myself so that I can claim “Oh, I was too smart to fight. Much better to simply take the bullet in the head.”
However, I will indulge you to a small extent.
Since you’re willing to drop the level of discussion to name calling and insults Roald, I’ll say what I think of you up front: You are simply a sycophant in regards to what you think will be the popular belief held by others. You are obviously a sycophant (and possibly delusional romantic) in regards to the proprietor of this site.
In short, you are simply intellectually pathetic, devoid of empathy and presumptuous in your approach to any kind of debate or discussion.
You will notice that I do not refer to you as ‘Mr. Michel.’ To do so would suggest that I have an iota of respect for you and your opinions.
So there you go Roald. Hopefully, my ‘ramblings’ didn’t fly too far over your head.
And just in case they did…
You don’t know me. Don’t pretend you do. You’re better off not to push this fight. Just roll over and whimper while taking an artificial solace in believing you have some level of intellect. It’s your choice: you can either live on with your pretensions or have your ass kicked on whatever intellectual level or platform you choose.
And by the way, it’s Don Quixote (or Don Quijote in Spanish) and not Don Quichotte –my daughter requested that I point that out to you.
“Why not slip the barrel in your mouth right now? Become a hermit……….” Ahem, so that’s your idea of starting “an intellectual discussion” Mr. Martin? And then, when I pick up your invitation to join in and respond on your level, you feel attacked and become even nastier? Seems you like to randomly dish it out, but can’t deal gracefully with some soft shit coming your way in return, Sir.
So you assumed what came after “Whatever that is, lol.” was directed specifically at you? Read again then, and this time don’t be so vain assuming it was.
“Sorry, not going to happen.” Again a misinterpretation. Or maybe not, and rather shows you have no clue about how to fight, and are stuck in the same romantic nonsense like Massenet’s Don Quichotte. And yes, you should go now, and point out to your daughter there’s not only that fellow created by Cervantes who took it upon himself to “fight” windmills. In fact there are many who love to believe they’re fighters, while in fact they’re just poor losers. Entiende, señor Martin?
Name calling? Within this thread, Sir, it’s only you doing that.
“You’re better off not to push this fight.” Oh Bill, you naughty boy, how manly, how macho you are. Alas, I see no fight, only a man rambling about one.
As a bonus, here’s my third tip for you:
3) Never warn, never threaten your opponent.
‘you naughty boy’? lmao. In attempting to be condescending Roal you come across sounding like a pedophile (how’s that for name calling?). ‘Never warn, never threaten your opponent’? To think of you as an opponent would be to intimate you are to some degree an equal, which in itself is as laughable as your disingenuous attempt to explain the motivation behind your previous comments.
At least have spine enough to step up and avoid cowardly passive/aggressiveness.
I invited you to refer to my posting as rambling? Please. About the only honest thing in your posting is your reference to your ‘soft shit’ coming my way.
It’s a great way to think of you and your intellect. Soft shit. Hopefully it won’t get any deeper. lol
Hush, hush, back into your corner now Mr. Martin. Go, go, go, and don’t forget to change your pamper, you hear?
Lol. Once again, the only way you can respond is through passive/aggressiveness. I can’t wait for you to break out your intellectual big guns of, “I know you are but what am I?” and “I’m rubber and you’re glue…”
Have a great evening Soft Shit.
Hope keeps you living sometimes.
It is better to do without it…and with that I become an atheist.
An atheist? Brrrrrr. Grrrrrr. You want to join a bunch of hopeless people with an overload of new dogmas, rituals, and decomposing logic, Angela? You better not, oh Vixen of Despair.
Pssst……..Atheism is just another religion Angela, but one that denies its own gospel, even fighting it, lol.
I believe and trust no one. That is my new religion.?
Living without hope also means living without trust or believing in others….a new path of isolation as the old me dies.
That’s crap! Living without hope doesn’t mean that at all!
If that’s the case, start praying, or something else insignificant. You have my blessings and trust.
For what purpose, to be reminded there is no hope and no future…
Yay! Enjoy your dark mood to the fullest, oh Black Beauty from the Abyss.
I posted to the Nina song but I didn’t see it come up here. Tried several times, but……nada!
Strange, I’ll look into it, my apology for the inconvenience.
As you can see in my Nina song comment, I already found the reason. Hmmm, talk about free speech.
Tell me about it. Every time I say something people object I guess people don’t like to hear what I have to say. Period. I understand it is their freedom but what about mine
Final answer to your question: Keep talking!
People who don”t like to hear what you have to say,
1) probably are shitting their pants to get confronted with what they were already thinking themselves but don’t dare to admit this was happening to them.
2) are people you shouldn’t give a rat’s ass if they’re listening or not. But I came to believe you’re too much a child of your culture and/or too angry with these people, that you could do that (yet).
You make me feel good just being me and I like that, thank you MBA.
That’s heartwarming, Angela, and also showing that it’s not difficult for you to show your feelings to the world. Many will envy you for that! And they should!
And whilst we’re to it…………
אִם אֵין אֲנִי לִי, מִי לִי? וּכְשֶׁאֲנִי לְעַצְמִי, מָה אֲנִי? וְאִם לֹא עַכְשָׁיו, אֵימָתַי?
Um…..since I don’t expect you to understand the language of my ancestors and are harassed by the curse on your laptop, here’s an English translation of the above. Worth to ponder, enjoy, and to make it your own.
“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?”
Beautiful Roald. “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?”
This damn iPad, just lost the entire content.
Roald, my children keep me grounded. Having felt first-hand twice what suicide does, I would not do that to my children, family and friends including virtual friends.
Medicine was my world for a over twenty years, leaving is not easy… I just don’t fit in. Only wish I knew that 20 years ago.
Moreover, living without hope is new for me, it’s the change I needed all my life…never expect anything…very simple.
Btw, Roald, I am seeing a kinder, gentler side of you and it doesn’t surprise me.
Do you believe in powers or forces that can control destiny ?
I believe in my own power to create my destiny.
I like that response…
Whether it is worth the effort is something else altogether.
You anticipated my response. 🙂
That’s why isolation is so nice…
I love isolation too, often seek it, find it, and enjoy it to the fullest. Doesn’t mean I’m alone.
I am glad you both like the poem, Roald and Joe. If you both would be so kind as to rate and ‘like’. I would appreciate even more. Thank you.
Hmmmm, and what made you think I like the poem?
LOL….hmmm….it got your interest. Why?
Because it was about hope, on of the concepts I’m lmfao.
Grrrr……. on = one
Why is hope so f*ing funny?
Well….um……not really funny. Hmmmm, come to think of it, in a way it is. Yup, yes, yeppers, it is, hahahahaha. I mean………hoping that hope will pay off, even if you have to wait for that to happen till you’re dead, is funny, right?
And then of course there’s pampered Mr. Martin hoping that Soft Shit will have a great evening, eh?
It is really amazing what living without all of these bonds which tie our hand, entrap us in longing, and make us wait. Waiting for that which never arrives. When we wait on the edge, in silence, we may find that the knife’s edge of existing is the finest place to be. Learning to balance in the reality of space and time seems like a desperate measure. But it is the wisest thing to do. The edge of the abyss is knife edge cutting the Gordian Knot of meaninglessness and it slices the blackest night. Within each fold is blacker, and blacker still. So what. That is meaningless too. Go there, and do not worry you are a journey without an end. That is the essence of the existence. Be. Whatever it is. Go. Where ever it takes you. You can never go back to the place you were, unless you turn back time, and that is one skill no mortal human or animal possesses. You can only be brave, and only the bravest enter the dark. Only the bravest stand up for those with no voice.
Hi Rebelle,
How are you? Hope all is well…
Great comment, very poetic…
“It is really amazing what living without all of these bonds which tie our hand, entrap us in longing, and make us wait. Waiting for that which never arrives. When we wait on the edge, in silence, we may find that the knife’s edge of existing is the finest place to be. Learning to balance in the reality of space and time seems like a desperate measure. But it is the wisest thing to do. The edge of the abyss is knife edge cutting the Gordian Knot of meaninglessness and it slices the blackest night. Within each fold is blacker, and blacker still. So what. That is meaningless too. Go there, and do not worry you are a journey without an end. That is the essence of the existence. Be. Whatever it is. Go. Where ever it takes you. You can never go back to the place you were, unless you turn back time, and that is one skill no mortal human or animal possesses. You can only be brave, and only the bravest enter the dark. Only the bravest stand up for those with no voice. “
I am well. All is very well. When you are ready, I have some things to share with you. To bring hope to dark corners of the world we all live in.
“The same sun that shines here today, is the same sun, that went down in another part of the globe, that is not a part of your world…”
I learned a lot in the One Full Year that I spent alone, completely alone, at the top of a hill in Arlington. 6-2012 through 6-2013. Within weeks of moving to this wonderful retreat on the hill, where I was to ostensibly write the book accompanying my second screenplay, my 21 year old nephew, a budding Egyptologist, took his life. That boy was dear to me, so dear, and he had no hope. Jobless since High School, and no hope of overcoming his difficulties, his income limitations that made college seem impossible, he found himself in that very lonely place where it did not matter where his escape would leave, the ones he left behind. He hung himself in a homeless camp.
As a result of all the wonderful tweeted sympathy (euphemism for Facebook condolences and offers of assistance without any substance whatsoever) from people too close at hand for that to be excusable, I used that one year to gnash my teeth, become bristly, angry, hostile, NEGATIVE (really, was just confrontational and questioning of hypocrisy and human weaknesses which abound in Social Network land unchecked by raised eyebrows and “really?” that you’d get in real life). And so it went, I pushed the selfish, the haughty, the self-centered I pushed them away and not gently, with my well-turned phrases and my heated debates. I shed myself of everyone and everything without form, without substance, without human connection tethering them to their empty promises of solidarity and sympathy. At the end of the year I moved to a new place 10 minutes from the office and the move itself jolted me back to the land of the living. And I had just the two good friends left out of dozens within a mile of me that I knew I can count on. Just right to begin again with.
And so that was where I went, like Scarlet angrily sifting the dirt and finding nothing but dirt to eat, I swore I would never be hungry (for real human touch and closeness) again. After I moved, I felt better. I had been in a one year of deep mourning and a change of environment from heavy trees and shade to sunny, open, and active street with cars at commuting times was a jolt after my year of a quiet writers retreat where I did not write a word,. The move sent me ultimately in the right direction and so I closed down every last bit of the social networking and it’s been great. It actually has results worth studying. I have to say those were the best of times, and the worst of times in that year because now that I do not have this fix for being “in touch” with people that is fixed by an empty social dragnet. I am honestly changed for the better. It must be something in my mien, overall, a need unfulfilled by the false box of fake chocolates that is Social Networking that had closed me off to the possibilities all around me in the living breathing humans.
Sure a lot of folks are standing around starting at that thing in their hands. Poor souls. They stop in the middle of a cross walk that they are absent-mindedly crossing while looking at that thing in their hands. I wait patiently in my car and do not bother to honk. Poor souls. The meandering distracted ambling shambling down the sidewalks and their helpful strangers part the ways to let the hand obsessed humans pass unharmed. Poor souls. Connected and yet. so not. I know by getting out of my hand, I may have become a person people relate to, because they are relating to me, and I to them. Not only that, but that year was spent not just pushing people away, but immersed in my research. Between Jstor and the Library, I have uncovered some incredible things that will inform and bloom into full blown things. I have filmed a demo of my demo on a 6 hour documentary – it should have been one hour, but I kept going, following threads to build a full picture of the subject and fill in all these blanks no one has done before. And people respond to the light in my eyes and my need for them. That counts for everything.
Have your quiet time. Be the quiet. What ever, where ever, Be. It seems to come from a hellish place eh. But in the end, it may be more helpful than you know. And maybe at the end, you will never eat dirt again. By being vulnerable, and laying there while you heal, the earth and gravity take care and knit everything back together and reconnect the missing fibers which attach us to one another. Let go and grow Dear Angela, I think of you often.
Rebelle,
Thank you for taking the time to share your experience of ‘Living without Hope.” I was touched by both your comments. I am speechless and will call you.
At times, your story sounded so much like mine. Thank you for reaching out. I look forward to talking with you, Rebelle. 🙂
Angela
I am looking forward to talking to you. By the way, I love —> the sidebar images! I totally totally get it 😀
🙂
“Moreover, living without hope is new for me, it’s the change I needed all my life…never expect anything…very simple.”
Dearest Sis,
Your sentiment is reminiscent of the Buddhist notion of suffering and nonattachment as its remedy. When you Want nothing, nothing is wanting and you truly enjoy living in joy.
Anglela as I read this I say not my sister Angela, without hope! Religions man made…God is Spirit. Keep the faith Angela, good things will come your way, sometimes there are years in our lives of famine and some of plenty…it will get better my sister. You are wonderfully gifted, real and genuine. Never lose hope! Here is a poem to make you smile;
Special
Sometimes a special something
Does enter into our daily lives
It comes not of our own choosing
But it never passes quickly by
It brings along with its life essence
Something so real and very alive
Having the power to bring certain joy
Where in the world bleakness once did lie
It brings new life with a sustained vibrancy
That can make a spirit stand up and fly
But the most valuable gift it dares to bring
Is a true happiness that makes a soul alive
We know not from where this treasure comes
But we know we have been blessed this day inside
For God has brought one of his beautiful ones
To fill the most empty parts of our daily lives.
Wendell A. Brown
Hi Wendell,
Thanks for reaching out. I appreciate it; you are kind.
Your poem brought a smile, a small tear– both from faith and patience. Keeping my fingers crossed the light will shine brightly and never leave me again.
-Angela