Hope
Two interesting quotes on hope:
Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. (Andy to Red in Shawshank Redemption)
Hope is the quintessential delusion of the human mind, simultaneously the source of its greatest strength and its greatest weakness!! (The Architect to Neo in the Matrix)
At first glance, the first quote looks good and inspiring, while the latter, a little skeptical.
Merriam Webster defines hope as "to cherish a desire with anticipation.” Desire and anticipation - one of this is clearly a vice, as per some Krishna. And so is the other - to an extent. Remember, Karmanye vadhika raste maa faleshu kadachan - performing the right action without any desire for fruits! Clearly, if you go by the Gita, anticipation of any form should be avoided. So hope is made of two vices. So why is hope a good thing? This quote is an oxymoron!!
Coming to the second quote, lets look at it a little more closely. Quintessential - the essence of a thing in its purest and most concentrated form; delusion - a persistent false psychotic belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self. Hope is intangible, and therefore, is characterized as delusion – and any choice/action based on hope is inconsequential. Hope is beyond comprehension through logic. In other words, this quote has a lot of meaning if logic is the only thing that runs through us. Clearly, that is not the case. Haven’t we heard of stuff called ‘intuition’, ‘passion’, ‘love’? I am sure more than one of these defies all logic – and yet bears consequence. How often our intuition turns out to be right, even though there is no logic that can explain that. Besides, doesn’t the definition of the word delusion itself contain the word ‘belief?’ Besides, what is a pure vs. a non-pure delusion in pure mathematical terms? Also, stuff that looks logical at first glance may turn out to be completely illogical later on – and how often the most logically executed plans turn out to be duds. In summary, this quote also seems to conclude towards something that it didn’t set out to mean!
I hope...
Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. (Andy to Red in Shawshank Redemption)
Hope is the quintessential delusion of the human mind, simultaneously the source of its greatest strength and its greatest weakness!! (The Architect to Neo in the Matrix)
At first glance, the first quote looks good and inspiring, while the latter, a little skeptical.
Merriam Webster defines hope as "to cherish a desire with anticipation.” Desire and anticipation - one of this is clearly a vice, as per some Krishna. And so is the other - to an extent. Remember, Karmanye vadhika raste maa faleshu kadachan - performing the right action without any desire for fruits! Clearly, if you go by the Gita, anticipation of any form should be avoided. So hope is made of two vices. So why is hope a good thing? This quote is an oxymoron!!
Coming to the second quote, lets look at it a little more closely. Quintessential - the essence of a thing in its purest and most concentrated form; delusion - a persistent false psychotic belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self. Hope is intangible, and therefore, is characterized as delusion – and any choice/action based on hope is inconsequential. Hope is beyond comprehension through logic. In other words, this quote has a lot of meaning if logic is the only thing that runs through us. Clearly, that is not the case. Haven’t we heard of stuff called ‘intuition’, ‘passion’, ‘love’? I am sure more than one of these defies all logic – and yet bears consequence. How often our intuition turns out to be right, even though there is no logic that can explain that. Besides, doesn’t the definition of the word delusion itself contain the word ‘belief?’ Besides, what is a pure vs. a non-pure delusion in pure mathematical terms? Also, stuff that looks logical at first glance may turn out to be completely illogical later on – and how often the most logically executed plans turn out to be duds. In summary, this quote also seems to conclude towards something that it didn’t set out to mean!
I hope...
2 Comments:
Enjoyed reading your account of your trips
good luck
Thanks!
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