When hope dies… when you see that even the smallest of hopes has been lost… An empty space with a dream… You create stories out of small thoughts and childishness… Just so that you can carry on living (Jean-Paul Sartre)
And so I am writing a few things that for better or worse are associated with lack of hope and with the lack of human freedom…
When you go to war, both sides lose, observed Yu Kuo Nou. This is what has happened to many people, simple people who never took part in the decision to go to war, yet their dreams and way of life vanished. Defeated by all the fighting, anxious and desperate, trying with all their might not to lose their dreams, they emigrated in order to regain their lost freedom. But, what they don’t know is that this world is a dangerous place, not because there are people who are evil, but because there are people that don’t try to stop them. (Albert Enstein).
We are not talking about simple things like leaves changing colour… we are talking about people with blood on their hands, who hide them when others are present… The things man does to man, no animal would ever do to another… indness is dead… Love is dead… Compassion is dead (Fereydoon Moshiri).
Charlie Chaplin observed that it took just one apple to fall for the world to learn the laws of gravity, but millions of people have fallen yet no one has learnt the meaning of compassion. How many innocent people have lost their lives searching for freedom and compassion, or trying to realise their dreams?
Che Guevara said: I don’t belong to any country; my homeland is where people and compassion are not locked behind bars! Most people dream of living with compassion and freedom and they walk on challenging paths in order to achieve that. Yet even though they dream of better days and of having the opportunity to relive their lives, they are too fast asleep to do anything about it. Freedom is an inalienable right of man.
Che Guevara believed that if you see people sleeping you shouldn’t wake them because they are dreaming of freedom, whereas I want to wake them to talk about that freedom. We kept a minutes silence in honour of freedom, but we fell asleep (Che Guevara). Yet life with all its difficulties carries on. The best revenge is to be happy (Che Guevara).
Everything I have learnt from life can be summarised in three words: Life goes on (Robert Frost). We must not get disillusioned. When Gabriel Garcia Marquez was asked what he would write in a 100-page book on hope, he answered that he would leave the first 99 pages blank and at the very bottom of the final page, he would write, “Hope dies last”.
If you feel you have reached the bottom of that last page, remember, this may be the moment you begin.
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