The Hope Addiction

We all know that the world we live in is largely fictional Behind the abstractions we are fed by politicians and corporate sales, there is very little of substance. We follow after the rainbows that are only painted on curtains, and like the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, there is nothing behind the curtain. We buy the sizzle, not the steak, the zoooooom, not the car. We rarely think of what these dreams cost us in actuality.

The stock market is a good example of a fictional world. Stocks go up and they go down, their prices mostly based on what people think other people are going to think tomorrow. People don't invest in companies because of their value, but rather because of their value in the eyes of others. The stock market is a large and more serious version of Las Vegas. People hope to become rich without effort or skill, purely because they are lucky and buy a stock that is going up and then sell it before it goes down. They tell themselves that this is because they are clever or knowledgeable, but luck is really the only factor. What they are buying with each stock purchase or sale is hope, hope for a big break, some life-changing event.

An even better example is a gambling casino. We all know the mathematics of gambling: the casinos make more than they lose, and that money comes from the gamblers. Many of the most persistent gamblers are those who can least afford it, the hard-working poor. Who can blame them for wanting to win a bunch of money? In their hearts they know that most of the people in the casino will lose some or a lot of their money, but they cling to the hope that they are "special", "lucky", "have a system", and thus will win. Even when they win they don't take their winnings home. They gamble some more. The money is not the object; the chance of winning “big” is.

Gambling is not about winning. Gambling is about the hope of winning. Working people, stuck in low-paying jobs, bills coming due, kids needing things, may see no hope in their day-to-day life of finding a way to manage. However, the casino offers them the chance, no matter how small, that a “Good Thing” can happen and all the problems can be solved. The gambler would rather lose a little money and keep the hope alive that something can change. The hope is all they have to escape despair.

Religions sell two basic things: They offer the rules for living, and they offer the hope of some after-life reward. People pay lip service to the importance of religious rules, although they rarely live by them. What keeps the horse moving forward is the carrot on the stick. What matter that the reward is never achieved or witnessed? that Heaven is never visited or photographed? The hope for Heaven is what matters, just as the hope for winning matters more than money won.

Hope keeps us waiting, rarely patiently, and keeps us tolerating ways of life that would quickly be abandoned were it not for hope. What would life without hope be like? While that may sound frightening, the thought of waiting indefinitely in misery for a promise that will almost certainly not be kept should be more so. Without hope, we would have to live in the here-and-now. We would have to pay attention now to what we do and how we do it. We would have to make each moment pay. We would ask the real price of things more often. We could still have goals and hope to attain them, but not by magic or without effort. We wouldn't wait to start having a life for Santa Claus to come.