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A review by breenmachine
Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities by Rebecca Solnit
2.0
The first 4 chapters really tugged on my heart strings and made me love hope. However, after that it all went downhill. It was a nice reminder of how the world has changed since this book was written, but it didn't instill a lot of hope in my after Chapter 5. It also became monotonous to read and lost my interest, especially in the "Millennium" chapters.
It was interesting to read about the Bush/Gore election in this book - because it sounds eerily like today's political climate - and I was too young at the time to fully comprehend it.
Quotes:
"If there is one thing we can draw from where we are now and where we were then, it is that the unimaginable is ordinary, that the way forward is almost never a straight line you can glance down but a convoluted path of surprises, gifts, and afflictions you prepare for by accepting your blind spots as well as your intuitions."
“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
"Havel said then, The kind of hope I often think about (especially in situations that are particularly hopeless, such as prison) I understand above all as a state of mind, not a state of the world. Either we have hope within us or we don’t; it is a dimension of the soul; it’s not essentially dependent
on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but, rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed."
"Despair demands less of us, it’s more predictable, and in a sad way safer. Authentic hope requires clarity— seeing the troubles in this world—and imagination, seeing what might lie beyond these situations that are perhaps not inevitable and immutable."
"Hope is not a door, but a sense that there might be a door at some point, some way out of the problems of the present moment even before that way is found or followed."
It was interesting to read about the Bush/Gore election in this book - because it sounds eerily like today's political climate - and I was too young at the time to fully comprehend it.
Quotes:
"If there is one thing we can draw from where we are now and where we were then, it is that the unimaginable is ordinary, that the way forward is almost never a straight line you can glance down but a convoluted path of surprises, gifts, and afflictions you prepare for by accepting your blind spots as well as your intuitions."
“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
"Havel said then, The kind of hope I often think about (especially in situations that are particularly hopeless, such as prison) I understand above all as a state of mind, not a state of the world. Either we have hope within us or we don’t; it is a dimension of the soul; it’s not essentially dependent
on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but, rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed."
"Despair demands less of us, it’s more predictable, and in a sad way safer. Authentic hope requires clarity— seeing the troubles in this world—and imagination, seeing what might lie beyond these situations that are perhaps not inevitable and immutable."
"Hope is not a door, but a sense that there might be a door at some point, some way out of the problems of the present moment even before that way is found or followed."