the 15th week

Current time: 6:53 P.M.

Current music: Mumford & Sons, "I Gave You All"

Current SoE: the very thought of talking to someone very special tonight

Monday. I ate WAY too much this weekend (sadly a recurring theme). Woke up with a splitting headache around 8:00, and at 9:00 I hit up The Anchor. Cottage cheese, toast, crackers, coffee, orange juice: in short, a feast. Work went well. We're hiring a 7:30-11:00 shift because mornings are getting crazier. Blake and Ams came in for coffee, so I took my break and hung out with them. When Amos and I got home, we hung out with Brandy, Blake and Ams in Blake's room for a solid couple hours. Isaac came over and joined in the fun. We retired to the front porch all bundled up in the cold and smoked pipes, and then I called Mandy K. and we talked for a while. It was definitely good and definitely interesting.

Tuesday. Early morning: met up with Isaac at The Anchor at 6:30. We had breakfast and coffee and talked about the tension between orthodoxy and orthopraxy, and we talked about the murky realm of "essentials vs. non-essentials" and we agreed that the best hermeneutic of all is that of humility. Did some writing at home and worked 11-6:00, and Amos and I had training with Stephanie and Rob afterwards. Pat D. and I met up at The Anchor for dinner and to play "catch-up." Back home Rob, Amos and I hung out on the front porch, and Rob became quite happy over Rock Bottom beer. We won't be able to finish it all--we're not drunkards, despite what you might think--so Rob passed the growlers out like candy to our neighbors. Sarah came over for a bit, and Mandy made cocoa-puff rice krispies FTW. Amos and I shot some zombies, and we ended the night by rifling through Mandy's shoe-box of photos. 

Wednesday. I worked 7:30-3:30 and forgot my phone at work, so I had to double back and didn't get home till about 4:30. Mandy and I went to Roh's Street to do some writing. Mandy had a blended dirty chai and wrote on her computer, just journaling about her life. She let me read it. In part of it she talks about how we met, how she loves me dearly, how I'm a good and crazy guy who's writing and on the way to becoming famous. Heh, okay. I finished my iced coffee and we went to the U.C.C. bible study in the next room. Ended the night shooting zombies with Amos. 

Thursday. Woke up early to go to The Anchor and to get a jump on my writing. Work went well, a swift and clean close. Spent the evening hanging out with Amos, Rob and Hartman. During work Mandy K. and I talked a lot over texting, and it was interesting. I showed it to Mandy, who said, "She's definitely interested in you." I gave Mandy K. a call on Skype. It was good, like we were actually hanging out, and the conversation was interesting to say the least.

Friday. 80 degrees in October? That's Ohio for you. Worked 7:30-3:30, a pretty crazy day with lots of catering order mishaps. But it's Friday :). After work I hung out with Blake and Amos, and Andy had us over for an amazing dinner with white wine and bow-tie pasta, topped off with chocolate brownies and Direct Trade Guatemalan. We smoked hookah in the living room. He lives in some rich part of Delhi. S.U.V.s and Jeep Wranglers in the driveways, tarp-covered boats, Halloween ornaments in the front yards. I felt like I was back in Centerville with Jessica and Carly at the house Cars sat for a while. A stark difference from my hometown, where Elder & Seton had a tailgate party, and all the white soccer moms were gripping their children in frenzied terror. But I digress... I spent the rest of the night talking to Mandy K. 

Saturday. I laid in bed for an hour last night listening to Mumford & Sons. Phe:nomenal. Hit up The Anchor for coffee and writing, and spent the next ten hours buying a dresser and a desk and then assembling them in my room. It took WAY longer than expected, but it turned out well. Rob said, "After four months, you're finally moving in." Mandy's in knots over the desk. "It's a trestle writing desk," I told her, "with an espresso finish." Once I got it all set up, we got pizza from Little Caesar's on Glenway. After dinner I spent the rest of the night talking to Mandy K., about things going on in her life and how we've both changed since 2009. Quite surprisingly, the past two years have been similar for both of us, in that we've had our fair share of badlands and hard times, and, I think, we're better off for it. She hinted at me coming to visit; what she doesn't know (until now) is that I've been saving up for it now for a while.

Sunday. Went to The Anchor for writing, coffee, and orange juice. Are you seeing the trend? Rituals define my life. Matt Jobst and I went to the Indian buffet for lunch, and we talked about him moving to Mariemont, then about me and things with Mandy K. Three plates of Indian food, a warm car drive home, and an Al Capone cigar: "Sandman is coming!" I crashed for a while, then spent the evening writing and chilling with the housemates. My typical Sunday night. We had a bonfire, and Rob bought gourmet chocolate and graham crackers for s'mores. Mandy K. and I skyped for a little while; I got to meet Krystal and her beautiful daughter Lily. We're planning on me going up there in December. It's weird to think that in 2009 I watched her go without any hope of ever even seeing her again (okay, that's a bit of a stretch, but still), and it's crazy and weird and wonderful to think that I'm in Cincinnati, she's in Wisconsin, and we're not just picking up where we left off but  are moving forward. 

The Cave

I can't get enough of these guys, and I figured I'd share one of my favorites. Something light-hearted and heart-warming, a bit of relief from the overbearing gall of breaking cynicism that's clouded these blog posts. I have another series of blog posts from The Anchor, spiritual in nature, that I plan on throwing up here within the next couple days. Give a little meat to these pages. In the meantime, however, I hope you enjoy this video (and the brief reprieve). This song does carry some meaning to me, but I'm tentative to explain at the moment. Oh, how I love delaying gratification. 

in conclusio

It’s easy to meet girls. If I wanted a girlfriend desperately enough, I could have one by the end of the month. Historically-speaking, getting dates and girlfriends isn’t some daunting task. In the last six years, I’ve dated nine girls. Had my fair share of broken hearts, and have broken a few of my own. That’s part of dating, part of life. I’ve been cheated on, back-stabbed, and betrayed; each heartless act against me by a girl I’ve invested in and trusted has thrust the cold steel of cynicism deeper into my koala heart. Yet hope has remained, flourishing in even the worst conditions, a glimmer of light on the fading horizon, a north star guiding me through the darkest of nights (hope: the new kudzu). While all of this may come off as just some kind frustrated because he can’t get a girlfriend, please know that’s not the case at all. Like I said, I could get a girlfriend lickety-split if I so desired. The issue here isn’t, and has never been, singleness. I’m quite okay with it, and it’s far better than being with someone “just because.” The issue here isn’t having a girlfriend but finding true love, or at least a reworking of it, and this is something I take seriously. I’ve broken up with the majority of my past girlfriends because I’ve seen that we’re not really that compatible, for whatever reasons, or because I’ve experienced better and don’t want to settle.

Wow. That last line really comes across wrong. Let me explain: in my life thus far, I’ve had two great connections with girls. Amazing chemistry, vast potential, overwhelming compatibility. The kind of girl you know you could fall in love with. The first cheated on me, showing that, in that situation, the love was really only one-sided. And the second, well, there’s much more to that story (and it is, so far, a damned good story; but grant me time and be patient). My point is, “experiencing better” is about a connection, two hearts beating as one; and having experienced this, having tasted this, how can I be content with any run-of-the-mill relationship? The things that matter to me are matters of the heart, matters of the personality. A girl’s physical beauty is important, but I’ve found that what matters most is the girl’s heart. A girl with a good heart becomes intoxicatingly beautiful, “fatally gorgeous”; but a girl with a rotten heart becomes nauseatingly ugly. What matters to me when it comes to pursuing someone is plethora; there’s her personality, her maturity, her responsibility, her integrity and faithfulness and all those good qualities. I want a girl who holds the same values as I do, a girl who has embraced a reasonable Christian faith, a girl who’s eager to have an authentic and invested relationship rather than a fling. It’s easy to get a girlfriend, but it’s not easy to find that. Maybe I’m just too old-fashioned, but I know what I want, and I’m chasing after it, even if the distance between Me & Her is hundreds of miles, even the distance from Cincinnati to Wisconsin; but it’s definitely worth it.

The hope I’ve sketched out on these pages (and then copied to my blog) is realistic, honest, and active. It’s a hope that acknowledges the awfulness in the world without focusing on it; a balanced worldview takes both the good and the bad, and an active hope acknowledges the bad while straining for the good.

Yes, nothing may change.

Yes, things may get worse and not get better.

Yes, I may be hurt in the process.

BUT…

Yes, things may change.

Yes, things may get better.

Yes, I may end up finding true love.

The destination may never be reached, but the journey itself may very well be the destination. The beauty of a story lies not at Point A nor at Point B but on the way between them. All our lives are our own stories, our mini-epics, and the worth in the story isn’t found on the last page but on the challenges and conflicts along the way. I may never find true love, but know this: I’ll be writing, in flesh and blood, some sort of masterpiece. A comedy? A drama? A tragedy? A fairy tale? Time will tell.

NOT the route of Buster

The worst kind of hope is the passive kind of hope. The “sit on your ass” waiting, where you bathe in regret and self-loathing, becoming pitiable and pathetic as the years go by without a scent of change. The surprise that things are pretty much the same spawns from the naïve idea that fate’s got you secure, and that time will change everything. But fate’s a cold-hearted whore, and time changes nothing. Action changes things. We can’t sit on our asses and just wait. If you’re not moving ahead, you may not be going backwards, but, well, you’re still not going anywhere. Any kind of passive hope is fruitless and deserving of condemnation; and while hoping always has an aspect of waiting (for a hope realized is no longer hope), the waiting is to be active. Chasing after our dreams, that’s hard work. But is it worth it? Yes, it’s absolutely worth it. And how do I pursue this, my greatest dream, the dream of love and union in a world like the one we’ve got?

PURSUE THE BETTERMENT OF MYSELF. I’m talking holistic betterment, no stone unturned. Better myself physically so that I’m attractive to the opposite sex, but more importantly, so that I’ll get to see my grand-kids one day (if it gets that far). Better myself emotionally, through discipline, so that I’m more able to handle life’s pains, single or married, in an appropriate and beneficial manner. Spiritually, I’m deepening my roots in God and continually pursuing sanctification, so that my heart will be continuously transformed so that my love can be strong and secure.

TAKE RISKS. Risk-taking, by nature, is scary. But risk is always there, even if we can’t see it. We may risk shooting ourselves in the foot, but we may also miss out on something beautiful for fear of plunging into the unknown. Resignation, just giving up and calling it a day, isn’t an option. This is a quest, damn it, and quests involve moving forward and pushing through all that stands in your way to find that prized object holding your fascination and delight. This quest involves making investments, risking humiliation, even being sorely hurt and facing disillusionment. But the tempting thoughts of resignation can’t be heeded, must be thrown off, because that’s no sort of life. Life is Risk, period. And life’s filled with hurts and disappointments, but we have to keep getting up, keep mending bones and stitching open wounds, and we charge forward come what may. Don't go the route of Buster, being neither seen nor heard.

A realistic hope must be an honest hope, and an honest hope is valid only if it’s active and not passive in nature. The kind of hope I must embrace is a hope that is realistic, honest about the nature of the world and the nature of hope, a hope that’s not content to wait around for stuff to get done but a hope that grabs the bull by the horns—or would they be tusks?—and wrestles through the arena no matter the gashes and bruises and open wounds and festering sores.

a sketch

BE REALISTIC. Easier said than implemented. We tend to swing between Optimism and Pessimism, and Realism (we like to think) falls somewhere in the middle. Pessimists condemn optimists for their naivety, and optimists condemn pessimists for blinding themselves to all the good in the world. Mandy K. told me quite some time ago, “Being a realist doesn’t mean ignoring the good and focusing on the bad, it means acknowledging the good while acknowledging the bad.” She told me this in 2009, and since then, that’s been my goal: to forsake the simplistic paradigms, to face the world head-on, to eke out a sort of coherent worldview framed by Logic and Wisdom rather than by fits of fancy. Sometimes I feel like I’m doing decent, and at other times it feels like I’m wandering dark alleys, fearful it’ll come to the point where I’m holding a goat in one hand and fifty bucks in the other with no idea how I got there.

We have, then, the hope for “true love,” reworked in light of perceived actuality, standing out of the murk and mire of our world like a Roman standard on the battlefield, beckoning our eyes and alighting fire in our hearts. Any idea that marriage is the Grand Solution to all our problems, that in marriage the fairy tale comes to life as all the pains and troubles of daily life fade into the background, must be discarded like used tampons. Get those things outta mind and outta sight! Marriage, rather, is like a Grand Enterprise, two human beings becoming one and (we hope) living a shared life in a disconnected world. Life’s ripe with good times and bad times; this world provides us with dark roads and badlands, and marriage doesn’t exempt us from this. If we’re dumb enough to think, even to hope, that marriage is the antidote to a world laden with suffering, then we’ll find ourselves sorely disappointed; and having such an outlook only raises the chances that when things don’t go as planned (as tends to be a trend), we’ll screw up the marriage because we’ve failed to see what marriage is supposed to be. It’s a union, two souls becoming one. It isn’t just a life change you can abandon at him, nor a passing craze. It’s here to stay, because even those who mock the idea of marriage acknowledge that there’s something mystical about it; and seeing what happens when marriage is done wrong (think purgatory or a miniature hell), the critics turn to mockery. Perhaps a better route would be authenticity, facing the dilemma of marriage—something so beautiful that can become something so miserable—and doing our damnedest to see the way through to the other side.

A SKETCH. “Please,” you beg me, “please be brief.” For your sake (and for mine) I’ll do so. I’m unmarried and never have been. But I’ve been in enough relationships, and been close friends with successfully married couples for quite a while, that I know a few things about how to make a relationship work. It all boils down to love. Not romanticized, idealized love but grounded, down-to-earth love. The love that’s rooted in decision and carried through with a lot of resolve and an equal dosage of endurance. It’s not just inviting someone into your life; it’s about making someone else your life. It’s devoting yourself to that person, in the sense that they become your life’s priority: their needs supersede your own. Love’s manifested in selflessness, servitude, sacrifice. In a world driven by impulses and urges, a world where our decisions are located on the map of selfishness and self-indulgence, in a world full of self-seeking cretins trying to “live it up” 24/7, the very idea of marriage as such a weighty ordeal is scored as archaic and ludicrous. And yet their own paths show the fruit of such living, and nothing good can be found there. No matter your “chemistry” or “connection” with someone, no matter the way your heart flutters at the sound of their voice or how seeing their face is the best part of your day, that’s not enough (and it never will be). True Love, a symbiotic decision to love and be loved in the truest sense of the word, that’s what I’m searching for. This reworking of marriage, locating it on the map of what could be called “biblical love,” that’s not a burden nor an imprisonment, it’s a liberation. It’s something my heart craves, something my spirit burns for, and I hope for it, oh! how I hope for it.

And then there’s reality. Cold, unforgiving, unrelenting, doomed for destruction but prospering now in all its horrid and fetid brutality. The way through this mess isn’t just a realistic hope but an honest one. A hope that says, “Yes, this is what I want, this is what I crave, and this is what I’m fighting for.” A hope that says, “Yes, I know this will be difficult, both the Journey & the Destination, but I believe it’s worth it.” Revisiting economics, I’m convinced that hoping for true love is a dangerous gambit riddled with unforeseen risks and terrors, but the beauty and goodness that can be discovered there is worth all that, because true love is a middle finger to the currents of selfishness, greed, and indifference that have become trademarks of our world. This honest hope acknowledges, “Yes, I know this is uncertain, and I know I may be shown a fool. But I’ll still hope for it, because it’s worth it.”

This isn’t a romanticized hope, nor an idealized one. It’s not a naïve hope, and it’s not blind, either. An HONEST hope. A stoic hope. And so I will hope, and I’ll be honest about it. But I won’t just sit in the dirt and wait for love to wander my way. There is a passive kind of hoping, the hoping belonging to the one who’s embraced resignation, a hope that, for the most part, does nothing but deepen the pain and widen the gulf between us and our dreams. This is the worst kind of hope: the kind serving no purpose but to make us feel less miserable (and then going turncoat on us, poisoning our hearts and minds so that we shrink and shrivel in our humanity). The kind of hope I’m advocating, the kind of hope I’m implementing, isn’t passive but active.

a different sort of hope

“There is a hope that doesn’t disappoint,” Hebrews tells us. Not “hope doesn’t disappoint” but there’s “A hope that doesn’t disappoint.” A very specific and particular hope, the Christian hope: new heavens and new earth, new creation, restoration and renewal, all that. I am a Christian, and thus—for better or worse—I place my hope in that future, of God’s final victory, of peace and justice drowning the cosmos. That hope has gotten me through many a dark night. But Hebrews doesn’t tell us about hope in general, and there’s no guarantee of finding true love.

We can work for it, wish for it, pray for it, but can we hope for it?

Maybe the answer lies in mathematics. If the world’s governed by mathematics, why not take the quest there? We have, on the one hand, the sheer and unfettered reality that most who hope for true love never find, and we see that most of those who’ve claimed to found it find themselves quite soon miserable and choking on disillusionment; and then we find, keeping us quite far from any simple answers, the fact that some people do experience true love, as I’ve defined it before). Mathematics leads us nowhere; how ‘bout mathematics, a matter of weighing costs? Is the cost of having hope worse than not? As much as hope may be an opiate, so long as you’re unaware of its fallacy, you’ll be ignorant, able to find endurance, and you’ll enjoy life a bit more. The cost of not having hope… Well, it just leads to bitterness, despair, and a general atmosphere of doom and gloom while monsters haunt you in your sleep (think “Pitch Black” meets Venus).

Believe a lie, be happy.

Embrace reality, be nauseated by the state-of-the-world.

But life without hope is no life at all. No matter your thoughts on the subject, hope’s an essential element in the human person. Every religion has a certain hope, something to keep us moving forward. Perhaps primitive peoples, faced with the nature of the world, its harshness and senselessness and cruelty (they had to face-off with smilodons!), maybe they spun religions to give themselves, their spirits, some rejuvenation. Like some spiders spin web to cocoon themselves from predations, so our ancestors donned religion to do likewise. And perhaps we’re just continuing this escapist technique, in fiction and fairy-tales, except now we know the difference (for the most part). Do I actually believe this? No, though I can definitely see its merit. I cling to the Christian hope like a baby clutching its blankie, and if you want to call me naively crazy, feel free: I’m well aware how this may look to some people, but don’t exalt yourself over me, since you do the same thing but in different ways. Faced with the uncertainty of all things and the misery of all things, like a panther crouched at the door waiting to tear us apart at the next opportune time, a certain eschatological hope that all this will change refreshes and rejuvenates the soul. But, again: this matter doesn’t address the issue at hand. And we’re back where we started; these meandering tangents can be fruitful or pointless, and I never know which ‘till I get to where I’m going, which is, most of the time, unclear; hooray for free-thought writing).

What I’m looking for is a different sort of hope, a REALISTIC hope (if there is such a thing). “True Love”, as defined by Disney and medieval hangovers, can’t be hoped for. It’s a caricature of the real thing, bloated like a waterlogged corpse by the prim and proper of our whims and fancies. This view on true love—you know, the perfect and easy and unchanging love which the world is helpless against—is a raging typhoon of nonsense and stupidity. I hoped in that “once upon a time” (to carry on the fairy-tale theme), but I learned my lesson when reality decked me across the face (“The deeper the delusion, the deeper the sting.”). But true love, the real kind of love founded on commitment, sacrifice, selflessness, that kind of love, the genuine kind of love, can be hoped for, because such love—though rare and difficult—can and does happen. But how do we hope for something that remains, despite our protests, uncertain?

There’s a way to hope for something without letting it consume you. “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,” the saying goes. Hopes tend to disappoint, so scatter your hopes across the waters. One might go somewhere. Don’t let yourself slip too far into the hope, so that its disappointment ruins your life. If life without true love is a life of misery by virtue of being absent of true love, then you might as well call it a day, ‘cause chances are, you’ll just be miserable. There are other things that bring joy and purpose (though, sadly, these, too, are uncertain). Don’t bloat the object of your hope into some insurmountable peak, don’t infuse it with trimmings borne of fancy; keep the hope realistic. But what does that look like? The fog seems hesitant to lift.

a beautiful monster

HOPE. The expectation of a desire coming to bear on reality. Everyone hopes for something, the OBJECT of our hope. It’s that desire, burning deep inside us, a desire for something (like true love), a desire so burning and scalding and deep that it becomes part of us, and removing that hope puts us through the gauntlet and empties out to a wooden bastion where we’re hung and quartered. There’s that which we hope FOR, and there’s that which we hope IN, the person or thing that we expect to bring this hope to fruition (be it fate, destiny, God, ourselves, other people, etc.). There are little hopes—“I hope the weather’s decent so I can get up without wanting to smash my head into a mirror”—and there are Big Hopes, such as, “I want to fall in love and get married and have a family.” Little hope disappoint and we shrug our shoulders and move forward with no skin off our back; Big Hopes disappoint, and we can be scarred for life.

Hope’s a beautiful monster. It promises us our desires and fuels our endurance amidst life’s checkered hellholes, but its monstrosity becomes apparent when the hope returns empty, and we’re left to pick up the pieces all by our lonesome selves. “Be careful where you place your hope.” The cost of an ill-placed hope can be pricier than we ever thoughts. Over the years I’ve wrestled with the concept of hope, especially in a world so cruel and unfeeling, in a world that doesn’t give two shits about what we want. I’ve likened hope to barbed wire: the tighter you hold on, the more it hurts (as a nautical variation on this, I’ve equated Hope to the lionfish: every time you get a hold of it, it just stings you). Hope, I’ve said, is a drug, an opiate, an escapist technique. “Life’s something awful, so we’ll get through it just telling ourselves everything will work out.” Perceiving the world to be one way, we fabricate in our minds the opposite of it, and we hope for it (never-minding, of course, that it’s just an illusion; such details become peripheral if they’re considered at all). And so, again and again, I condemn hope as a lie, a rogue, a marauder, and I decry its authority and advocate its beheading.

And behold the hypocrisy, the inconsistency: I’m a creature of Hope.

Hope saturates my life, keeps me going, keeps me from giving up.

With my mouth I confess hope to be dead.

But in my heart it’s flourishing and vibrant.

To quote the Harvard Sailing Team, “I love myself and I hate myself.”

I’m seeing, again for the first time, that the Simple Answer isn’t so simple.

“Kill hope, bury it, leave it there.” That’s fine and dandy, except:

(A) A life without hope is no life at all. Yes, the world’s awful, but it has its bright spots, too. Realism isn’t focusing wholly on the bad, but focusing on the whole: the Good and the Bad. Calling life a hellhole with no moments of glory is emphasizing only one end of the spectrum; we may as well be honest and acknowledge that life is constant suffering interspersed with brief and fleeting moments of happiness. While that outlook’s depressive in its own state, the fact that there are moments of happiness shows that a total genocide of hope is a foolish endeavor. At the least, hope itself should be reworked, reframed, rearticulated, but not wholly abandoned.

(B) A life without hope will turn us into monsters. If hope has a function, perhaps this is it: it keeps our hearts above the murk and moiré of our world, and we’re able to “hold ourselves together” as the world’s shit-storm rages all around us. Those who abandon hope become cold and calloused creatures void of any vibrance and vitality, mere shells of their former selves. Looking at the world in all its darkness and cruelty can make our own inner light go dark, and focusing solely on the bad that doesn’t just happen but thrives can easily lead us into a cistern of despair from which there’s no escape (except, of course, for a well-placed round in the temple or a blade drawn up the wrist). If you’re going to abandon hope, you’d better be willing to become a monster.

(C) We declare hope to be escapism, but what’s left when Hope’s removed? Just a greater escapism. Held down by the weight of the world, we flail and thrash against the meaninglessness in all sorts of ways, not least our postmodern triumvirate of sex, drugs, and alcohol (shadowed by a host of other less noticeable addictions). The right path through this minefield will lead to the other side, not just leave us wandering like blind fools waiting to get our legs blown off.

The answer isn’t to just toss out hope altogether. The answer lies in being honest with the world and reshaping our hope around that. Specifically, in light of my quest for True Love, how ought hope be shaped? Reality is mean, but it has its kinder moments. How does hope acknowledge this without lose its soul altogether while simultaneously being restrained? At this point there are no solid answers; I feel like I’m in a black room filled with smoke, groping for a door or window; but this is a house of mirrors, and how long I’ll be stuck here, I just don’t know.

We can’t leave Hope as is, and we can’t abandon Hope altogether. It’s that tension between Cognitive Dissonance and Resignation: we can be like the ostrich, thrusting our heads in the sand so that we don’t have to face reality with all its trimmings, or we can be like the turtle, curling up in our shells and becoming lost in ourselves, shutting out the world and waiting for it all to end. But there’s a different route, the route of Rebuilding. When hope disappoints—as it often does—there’s a period of disillusionment, and we can move through that disillusionment into cognitive dissonance, resignation, or rebuilding. This is where we’re at: we can either naively cling to our foolish hopes, we can just give up and sit in the ash while cutting our boils with broken pottery, or we can Man Up, Nut Up, and hammer out a way forward. My perspective on hope—especially hoping for true love—must be in accordance with reality while refusing the miserable, albeit easier, routes of cognitive dissonance and resignation.