I think its safe to say that hope is a skill requiring discernment – mindfulness. I wonder if I suffered from chronic physical pain what my relationship to hope might be.  The word courage pops into mind, as it takes a kind of courage to hope skillfully. I admire your courage Tee.

Viktor Frankl notion of hope is tied to the notion of meaning rather then to specific outcomes.    “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” – Frankl –  I imaging that space as a stillness waiting, the pause between the notes that creates music, as hope, teh space of hope to choose, hopefully courageously, wisely? That their exists a space of choosing and that space is hope or can be?

No dialog on hope is complete without addressing Pandora’s Box paradox, a box that contained all the evils of the World, A box that also contained hope. Begging the question is hope to evil?  Only in the story hope was not released with the other evils. Does  this mean Life is suffering as thier is no hope, suffering without hope, that we suffer when hope is locked away? Their is a thought that hope was kept in the box in order to separate it from the evils and so transform it. Hope attached to the evils’ being hope for the wrong things while by itself, in its ‘true’ formless form, is the space of choosing, reframing, meaning…

For myself I hold such thoughts – things – lightly.