It is difficult to look at the present situation and hold hope up as a possible future.  The booze flows as we drown out the insanity one glass at a time.  We numb ourselves to ignorance and stupidity right outside of our doors.  We seek solace in social media.  None of these things bring us any closer to the hope that we desire.

But hope does not work in mysterious ways.  It is simple.

There is no future as our feeds contend.  It does not exist.  It is not set in stone, just as there is no past, as our drinks promise us.   We can get lost in the illusion of a dystopian future and be weighed down by the ignoble past so easily.  But, in doing so we give up on the hope that we desire.

We only have the present and this is where hope resides.

If there is a mask on the face of hope it does not mean that there is not a smile behind that cloak.  Hope has proof.  It has been verified.  With every corrupt act from all the power and greed hungry politicians that have ever effaced the country, with every corporate turn of the screw, with every ignorant and angry retort, hope has marched forward in the form of progress.

Hope is the realization of past progress, and the actualization of present progress.  If you don’t have hope, act as if you do.  If you don’t want hope, then lay down and let the waves of progress wash over you.  If you have hope, then march forward as the orange ignorance slowly gives way to the inevitable progress that we have made.