Tully Considers Hope

What is hope? Some might say that it's the will to keep fighting when everything else is gone. Others (like me) might like to say it's the ability to be eternally optimist despite overwhelming evidence that you really, really shouldn't be. Still others might say it's what happens when you wanna get laid and you're nothing but a poor 3.

I've actually heard someone say that. One wonders what values they're teaching kids nowadays. Yes, she was 13. *shivers*

What is hope, though, if not a different definition depending on who you ask, if they can even answer you. It's like love. Undefinable, yet everyone knows what it means. Existence's finest oxymoron.

Let's drop the whole pretentious intellectual thing for a moment here and actually discuss what hope is, at least to me. Hope is what drives my brain, at least in its current form. It's not what gets me up in the morning (that's coffee and the desire to change the world for the better. Also, conquer Poland), but it is what gets me going when things look tough (that and coffee too. Can't have enough coffee).

I really can't define it. It's more of a gut feeling than anything else, something I instinctively know, but don't comprehend. Something that pokes me in the nose and goes "Keep going, dude, you'll get there. Eventually". And that's all you really need, isn't it? Your own brain, your own self telling you to keep going, even if your conscious mind doesn't want to.

Because deep down, you have hope. Hope that stuff will be better, hope that stuff will change. Hope that, in some point in the future, things will be different. And once you have that, you can try and make that difference happen. We're all players in a chess board, not actors on a stage. What we do isn't programmed (at least not in my opinion), so our own hopes and dreams can be made real through sufficient application of endurance and stubbornness. Because the world isn't immutable. The world changes, and we change with it.

But, what is hope? Whatever you want it to be, really, as long as it keeps you going. True hope isn't negative (unless of course you happen to have a severe psychological condition, in which case, please contact a psychologist or a psychiatrist. The step to recovery begins at admission), but something beautifully positive.

One day, I hope to be a writer. And I'll make that happen. Because Tully Burnalot is Portuguese and our answer to "Ottomans are blocking the way" was "Go around fu**ing Africa, I don't give a shit".

See you next time. Thank you for tuning in.