Hope takes us through the wickedest of crises in a painful and agonising world. Aside from being a dynamic credo, hope fosters our belief, the cornerstone of conviction
It goes without saying that history, or war, is not a thing of the past. The reason is simple. We haven't turned up yet at the enchanted T-junction, the assured land-dwelling of joy, or tuneful co-habitation, as divined by space-age mavens, or up-to-the-minute mystics.
To highlight a popular precept - the fall of communism did not lead us to enlightenment, or a safe autonomous anchorage. Just think of it -the ongoing 'phantom' of glorified discord that has divulged no hint of meeting with a dawdling, gradual demise. What we have today are the hellish killing fields re-enacted in the Middle East, Iran, and elsewhere.
We are all submerged in an ominously lethal, toxic grip of ethnic, emotional, also fixated 'burning metal pot.' Call it human duplicity: the surging, shifting progression of the vilest of times. From high-tech to low-tech evolution. Perish the thought of the horrific peril of natural catastrophes, placed alongside combat, or war -what wobbles our race is a sudden encounter with serious injury, or death, in the midst of festivity, or celebration. A vehicular accident, anAK-47-brandishingterrorist, excited fans at a sporting event, or anything-from a minor scuffle and road rage to hate have it in them to unleash gloom.
That our own bigotry has robbed us of assessing things, as they are, is nothing short of a collective failure. You'd call it blatant jingoism, war, aggression, or hostility, or what you may. They cumulatively haunt us in the face - of being witness to a disturbing sense of existence. Yet, in the razing cauldron of fear, it is nothing short of a wonder that we, human beings, often demonstrate incredible strength, courage, and empathy for others, as also individuals who could be the wrongdoers- no more, no less.
In one study of a hope-based therapy intervention, participants were asked to write down goals they hoped to meet, followed by several possible pathways towards that goal ("Social Indicators Research," 2006). As Jennifer Cheavens, PhD, a professor of psychology at Ohio State University, who developed this hope-focused intervention, articulated, "You identify where you are currently, and then you generate multiple ways to get there."
A 2025 study, published in the journal, "Emotion," found that people who felt more hopeful reported a stronger sense of meaning in their lives. This was not so much related to 'just feeling good' - or, believing you can reach goals - that mattered, but the specific feeling of hope that uniquely contributes to perceiving life as meaningful. A 2023 review, published in "Current Opinion in Psychology," articulated that, "Hope is best viewed as an ameliorating emotion, designed to fill the liminal space between need and reality."
There is a distinctive, innate human ability that is fundamental to integral solidarity during war, a natural calamity, like an earthquake, or bereavement in the family. The reason is simple - our race is social by temperament, primarily because of closeness and collective knowledge hat help us to handle distressing events. This bids fair to a palpable outcome -trauma and adversity bring out the best, resident potential in us, just as much as social contact leads to comfort and recovery. It is all part of a venerable, age-old maxim - every historic occurrence rises above time and place to emerge as a symbol of our resilient response to it, or as preparation for a nascent, futuristic calamity.
Resilience is yet another connexion to our fundamental human component: hope. Hope takes us through the wickedest of crises in a painful and agonising world. It extends beyond overpowering grief. Aside from being a dynamic credo, hope fosters our belief, the cornerstone of conviction. It provides us reveries, also visualisations, and alternate truths, while asserting that our troubled world could be transformed.
Hope epitomises, no less, the power of positive imagination over experiential anxieties. It isn't a 'flight, or fright' response from reality. It embodies a long-term orientation -for reconnoitring the association between the intended and the conceivable. This translates to a simple aphorism - that all thinkable outcomes are attainable, the difference being of degree, provided they are galvanised by our passion, also love, for a phenomenon called life.
Picture a parable - a multitude of events linked to war, or battle, has been repressed, from time to time. Likewise, several other historical, also catastrophic, events, what with their own weird assemblage of subliminal, racial, political, and religious upsurges, have shattered logic, not just emotion, or collective sensitivity. Yet the paradox is stunning -such events are being 'excavated' from the bottomless depths and made into exploding issues for political advantage. This does not, ironically, contradict the idea that the history of war is a contextual proposition for evaluation, or that the winner has the right, or write, to carve life's own (in)equities.
There is, at the other end of the strap, yet another parody. While we have all perceived the primal necessity for reconciliation, it is deplorable though that a decisive drive on either side of the spectrum towards attaining the goal of tranquillity is, quite simply, a chimera - because the aggressor and the defender have stopped thinking of living in harmony with oneself, as also one's milieu.
While it is a straightforward ploy to blame everything on flaring emotions, or radicalism, which should not be a part of our modern, advanced world -the super-age of science and technology - it is a travesty to using 'hired' phrases, viz., culture, empathy, accord, and unity, primarily because none of our forebears ever wanted nations that would disgorge hatred on the basis of ethnicity, race, colour, belief, faith, or creed.
The inference? We have not only failed them, but ruined ourselves -because there is just no breather, unless things are metamorphosed with purpose, diligence, and fidelity, from the inside out. Is this asking for the impossible, or dreaming of one expansive utopia that Thomas More never envisaged.
Nidamboor is a wellness physician, independent researcher and author