From Despair to Hope

'From despair,thoughts lead only to one direction-hope'. Dr Christian Bernard

There is a very thin thread between hope and despair (and vice versa). I have seen the citadel of positivity crumbling to zero energy at the flick of an eye, a tone or a tenor or the psychic impression gathered at the subtlest level so hard to define and pinpoint. I feel there is no way one can ever be complacent about being always-positive. Even the people who seem to be negativity incarnate can at times be a real support to a kin in despair !!

It bewilders me often whether I was more positive, full of hope, faith when I was growing or now when I am though more than half of my life and have seen it in its varied hues and colours-bright, shining sometimes and sometimes dark, gloomy: have witnessed stoically (and waited patiently) for the victory of the righteousness and honesty over the vicious and false in the land of dharma. I remember vividly how my father hated words  of despair and he was positivity personified. Had seen him oozing with hope amidst deadly testing almost devastating circumstances on social, economic and emotional fronts. His outlook on life was infectious and we inherited this virtue. I have witnessed the truism of the dictum: 'my faith, my trust  that tomorrow will be better/ even the bullets cannot shatter.'
True, I have been in pits of gloom at times and surrounded by the darkness but invariably I have clung to hope of better next day. This I deem as my sole strength.

I endorse to the Christian belief that despair is a sin. I pitied how Dr Faustus failed to 'avoid despair' and 'call for mercy'. ('I see an Angel hovering over thy head/ with a veil full of precious grace/ ready to pur the same into they head/ then call for mercy, avoid despair'- Christopher Marlowe)

And I also feel its easier to get into but so very difficult to get out of. It hurts me when young people/ students commit suicide and sets me athinking whether we as teachers, parents are not responsible for this somewhere having failed to inculcate the appreciation for the positive and rejection of the negativity. There, for sure, is a Chiquitita alive is each one of us who can see that 'sun is still in the sky and shining above' us and this can sail us through.

Many a green isle needs must be
In the deep wide sea of Misery
Or the mariner, worn and wan,
Never thus could voyage on..
(P B Shelley)