A useful response to hope or despair
Sometimes I ride to be together; sometimes to be alone. As much as I like my friends, today I didn’t want to spend another rest stop at a rural convenience store, debating health-care policy or drone strikes on enemy combatants. Alone on a familiar road, navigating is second nature and freeing.
So I headed for the familiar but less-traveled roads: Brownlee, Alton, Amber Hills, Queenstown. I hid from a headwind, and my mind free-wheeled: Angelou’s observation, or wishful hope, that we are more alike than un-alike, and Seneca’s advice that we should not hope without despair, or despair without hope.
Now more than ever, it seems the best advice is not “get over it;” it’s get on with it. There’s always been plenty to do. We should step into the breach we see. If we despair, find hope. And if we have hope, don’t ignore despair.