Three Things I Loved This Month That Give Me Great Hope

Listening to the news often was not one of them. So much hate. It makes me want to talk about love. Fortunately, I was reading Rebecca Solnit's Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities this month. It was, as I so often find Solnit's books to be, the perfect book to be reading at the time.

Right now, I am training for my first marathon and fundraising for The Humane League, to reduce animal suffering. It doesn't seem like much when there's so much pain in the world. Of course, there is more to do. But Solnit reminds us that we can make a difference and provides examples of unexpected, but not unimaginable, effects from our actions. She encourages us to free ourselves from despair — and imagine more.

"Despair demands less of us, it's more predictable, and in a sad way safer. Authentic hope requires clarity—seeing the troubles in this world—and imagination, seeing what might lie beyond these situations that are perhaps not inevitable and immutable." 

Solnit made connections between the things I love and showed me hope, "What we dream of is already present in the world."

But before I begin with the three things I love, some assertions, because there must be no doubt.

First of all:

• Black Lives Matter
• Empowering women makes positive change in the world. Let Girls Learn.
• Health Care is a Human Right
• We can end global poverty. 
• Animals, our fellow sentient beings, deserve to be treated better. 
• Love Trumps Hate/Make America Love Again
• There's strength in compassion and empathy.
• "Imagination and nonviolence are the power of civil society." — Rebecca Solnit again

And now, the three things (plus a few extras) I loved this month:

Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities by Rebecca Solnit

I loved this book! Solint reminds us that the future is (thankfully) unknown, change must constantly be worked toward not something we merely arrive at, and activism works, imagining the future works — "...symbolic and cultural acts have real political power."

We must remember and celebrate victories, experience joy and then continue our work. 

"Most of us would say, if asked, that we live in a capitalist society, but vast amounts of how we live our everyday lives—our interactions with and commitment to family lives, friendships, avocations, membership in social, spiritual, and political organizations—are in essence noncapitalist or even anticapitalist, full of things we do for free, out of love, and on principle."

Unlocking the Cage

I loved this film! Steven Wise was a young lawyer inspired by reading Peter Singer's Animal Liberation to change the focus of his law practice to advocate for animal rights.

Wise founded the Nonhuman Rights Project which has been slowly, arduously, persistently making a case for personhood rights for chimpanzees, dolphins, whales, and elephants. They've been bringing cases seeking writ of habeus corpus, the ability to report an unlawful detention or imprisonment before a court on behalf of individuals who would not normally have a voice in a our legal system which considers them "things". Because of this work, and as this work continues, perspectives are changing — the idea of according some rights to our fellow sentient beings seems less unusual and more common sense every year.

We must recognize and celebrate slow progress and incremental success.

“I’m much more interested in effecting incremental change – and it’s a reality that lots of people have stopped eating animals." — Peter Singer qtd in Interview With a Philosopher: The Moral Compass of Peter Singer, Luxury London

First Ladies of Running: 22 Inspiring Profiles of the Rebels, Rule Breakers, and Visionaries Who Changed the Sport Forever by Amby Burfoot



Here I am blithely running track
in junior high. I did not question
my ability to do so. I had no idea
other women had fought for this
freedom just 20 years before.

I loved this book! I've been reading a lot of running books and this is a favorite. I had no idea that women had struggled so much to run. They were told they could not run more than 200 meters, could not run 800 meters, could not run a mile, could not run a marathon — but women persisted and did.

"I was happy to call into question a repressive structure that prevented women from reaching their goals at that time. It was mush the same then with doctors, lawyers, scientists, writers and other fields. People thought women were incapable of doing these things. But how do you know unless you first give women the chance? That was the point I wanted to make." — Roberta "Bobbi" Gibb, first woman to run the Boston Marathon, 1966

As a young woman, I never questioned my ability to run. I had no idea other women had been prevented from doing so. It seemed unimaginable that a race official would lay hands on Katherine Switzer and try to physically wrest her from the Boston Marathon. I had been given freedom, but I wasn't aware of it. Now that I know, I can marvel and revel in it. 

"To an extent, to be a vegan runner is to be the humblest of revolutionaries." — James McWilliams, "The High Life" in Running, Eating, Thinking: A Vegan Anthology

Instead of taking this effort for granted, I can experience the miracle. And I can take hope.

 "When you don't know how much things have changed, you don't see that they are changing or that they can change." — Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark

I loved the movie Suffragette, which captured the early struggle of women for equality and the right to vote, as well. Women faced brutality to do so. I will definitely be voting. 

I also loved the new Ghostbusters movie — it was a hilarious, fun romp with a great cast. So, trivial? Not so much. Let's celebrate: four amazing women comedians were cast in this film. It's a victory that women can be on stage. That women succeed in comedy and on screen. I love watching inspiring, fun, powerful female protagonists. Reading about them, too.

We must remember our history.

"Amnesia leads to despair in many ways. The status quo would like you to believe it is immutable, inevitable, and invulnerable, and lack of memory of a dynamically changing world reinforces this view. In other words, when you don't know how much things have changed, you don't see that they are changing or that they can change. Those who think that way don't remember raids on gay bars when being queer was illegal or rivers that caught fire when unregulated pollution peaked in the 1960s or that there were, worldwide, 70 percent more seabirds a few decades ago and, before the economic shifts of the Reagan Revolution, very, very few homeless people in the United States." — Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark

Responding to dark times, injustice and violent death, some of my friends have talked about wanting to be a "force for love" in the world. I agree.

Though there are times, sadly — when loved ones are dying, when people on large platforms make hateful comments, when violence strikes, in the face of injustice — that love seems inadequate. It's such a disheartening feeling: love seems inadequate.

But false. As a hospice volunteer, I've seen love confront despair and death. It's magical stuff.

Love is up to the task.

So, it's worthwhile loving, sharing what we love, celebrating what we love and doing the best we can (in practice quite powerful). Even if it doesn't seem like it's enough — it may surprise us — or come to fruition long after we're presumed dead.

Solnit reminds us of the worthy struggle as well, "Hope is not a door, but the sense that there may be a door at some point..." and invites us into the "paradise of participating."

Author Nicola Griffith once wrote a blog post about how the majority of literary prizes are awarded to works written from a male perspective — it inspired an award for literature about women. And so, she says, "Speak Out You Might Make a Difference." I really love this.

I love talking about what I love. I love imagining positive futures. I love utopias (for all their foibles). And I love this quote about them:

"Utopia is on the horizon. When I walk two steps, it takes two steps back. I walk ten steps and it is ten steps further away. What is utopia for? It is for this, for walking." — Eduardo Galeano

I'm sure to be reading more Solnit and Galeano this election season. And I'll speak out. I'll participate. I will hope. I will make myself, as Solnit says, into, "one small republic of unconquered spirit."

I know many of my friends are doing that, too — and I absolutely love them for it. This, in and of itself, is a triumph.

I love how Solnit says it:

"The term 'politics of prefiguration' has long been used to describe the idea that if you embody what you aspire to, you have already succeeded. That is to say that if your activism is already democratic, peaceful and creative, then in one small corner of the world these things have triumphed."