"One Step" by Blas

One step

Hope is a wish cherished deep in the soul, according to the sentimental and hopeful. Others less so consider it simply as a hapless predilection for optimism. People live through suffering and sorrow every waking moment, unknowingly searching for something to alleviate the pain and emptiness of a life yet without meaning, hopeful that tomorrow may bring something better than today. When dealing with the precious and intangible, one tends to despair over not beholding it completely, subjected to uncertainty and doubt and sorrow over the course of the years - the woebegone believe in it so hopelessly that they are driven to try to find it in barren places, in desolate regions, anywhere. As days relentlessly pass us by we try to convey our own desperate wishes, our own dying hopes, and we share it with others hoping that somehow a part of us will be kept alive. We give and we take and we share through bright laughing smiles, through blotchy red-nosed tears, through the intimacy of a silent moment undisturbed like the smooth mirror surface of a lake and we realize that hope is beautiful and enigmatic; like beauty, hope is also in the eye of the beholder.

Despite stumbling and falling from time to time, we take ahold of our shaking knees and stagger back up, ready for another go. The impetus for such resilience lies within our faith, our will to hope again, that for every tribulation there is triumph, that each sorrow will be matched and outnumbered by greater happiness. Hope is a powerful feeling that passes like light from body to body, from soul to soul. Like love and faith, it has the power to rebuild entire kingdoms or ruin nations. And yet such a great and terrible thing can be transmitted and preserved in the humblest ways, in the tiniest matters of human interaction. We give each other hope when we lend a hand to someone who has fallen - because one realizes he can help others, while the other realizes there are still people who do care. Hope can be drawn in the

smallest shuddering breath, in a struggling gasp for air. Even going to sleep each night anticipating the next day is hope in itself; the fact that we all live and coexist with each other without self destructing from the demands and pressure of daily life is a little beacon of hope that we send to everyone else - I'm alive, and I'm living each day unrestrained by yesterday, and so can you. The quote of John Donne is every bit as true as pure human psychology; "No man is an island, entire of itself." Because without each other, lacking the knowledge and awareness that man is not alone, where else can humans derive their will to live? Their desire to hope again?

We make mistakes, that's a given for all mankind. But to look forward to better circumstances, to learn from the past and hope with conviction as firm as the tethered continents, that is miraculous in itself. Hope is a miracle to the wondrous and an unfounded wish to the bitter, but at some point in everyone's lives people do. We hope, we wish for many things that come to pass. Some do, some don't. But it doesn't have to be one bit firework display of glittering ebullience - hope inhabits every act of kindness both big and small, because each good deed gives a sense of restored faith inside the person, like firewood stoking the blaze of life in each individual and driving them to open their eyes for another morning filled with glorious uncertainty. We share hope with each other through the simplest gestures of smiling at a crestfallen child, to a bowl of hot broth, to the seemingly inconsequential random acts of goodwill that go largely unnoticed but become the unseen adhesive to which all morals and beliefs are made firm again. A person shares hope, just like a person loves, without selfishness of wanting to be loved back or to gain some form of personal comfort or self satisfaction but with the sole intent of simply giving and making someone's day. Sharing hope is not just something one does based on religion or morals, it flits by as fast as a hummingbird amidst a sea of flowers. It is natural, it helps us survive the

oncoming squalls of life's curveballs. Without hope there would be no more reason to continue fighting, no more reason to live or to love or to hate so humanly. We share hope because we can.