Where do I get hope from?
Friends ask me this, over cup of tea and tossing Frisbees. As a speaker, I am asked by earnest moderators, what brings you hope in these times? And I am baffled by this question, while also in total empathy for the parts of us that are asking this question.
My truthful response may alarm, amuse or inspire you. My truthful response to this question is - It does not matter to me where hope can be found. For I have no need for hope. When I feel into the energy of the word hope it is absolutely the same as hopelessness. Both are ‘wanting for a future state’, one positively inclined, the other negative. They are the same on a spectrum of good and bad future states.
And the reason I don't need hope nor resist hopelessness is that I have something far more nourishing, grander even. I have certainty. A certainty that arises from the depth of my being. A certainty that is unreachable by the constant social proof of devastation around me. The stories of pain and problems everywhere in the world, reach my heart, break my heart, soak my eyes, but it never reaches this certainty. I have been rather curious about the source of this certainty. What sponsors this? Where does it come from? The answer is this - this certainty is fueled by my joyful reclamation as a primordial designer.
After the word ‘is’, ‘design’ is my favorite in the English Language. Design is a process of creation. A process of making happen. In Hindi one of the many words for design is AbhiKalpana. Kalpana meaning 'to make' and Abhi meaning 'now'. We are creators Now. We are actively choosing, designing, making the future NOW, not just through our projects, books, art, music, grand ideas of justice and change. But by the choices, we make every single day, especially the small ones, the quiet ones behind the curtains of our minds. This has been true for us as humans as long as we have been known as such. This is deeply true for me, this 'creating in the now through my choices' is the unquenchable wellspring of unshakable certainty. Daily actions made with consistent clear alignment with the future I wish to create.
Descartes, I am afraid, you were not accurate in your declaration. 'I think, therefore I am' needs a reassessment. Needs rewriting. Therefore the goddess must oblige. I design, therefore I am. I design, therefore I am certain. I design, therefore I don’t need hope.
Through small, big actions, choices I know the future. I see the future. I make the future. I live the future. In the now. The transformation I have sought for years, I now choose to live in. And this is not just idealistic mumbo jumbo. My relationships, work, my world, around me are the empirical proof of the future I am creating. I choose it to be so, by designing every aspect of it from a zero plastic toothpaste to keeping close a few deeply nourishing reciprocal relationships grounded in true love. I am living now, a regenerative future, by design. I don't have to wait for my project ideas to get funded, my book to be published, my application to TED to be accepted. This certainty in the now is the best antidote to the fuckery of this moment in history. Go give up hope, and try certainty.