Hope

Once… Once there was hope in the world. Real hope, that real human beings shared. It wasn’t a naive optimism, or a longing for the tides to change by their own powers. It was the certainty, that together we could create whatever world we wished for. It was trust. Trust in each other. Nothing more and nothing less. And we don’t need anything else. Really. It’s all that matters. Trust.

It isn’t gone though, it’s just very faint. We need to strain our eyes, and firstmost, strain our hearts. We need to start believing in each other again. We need to start believing in the power that emerges when we take each others hands and walk together, instead of walking by ourselves.

There is no external powers controlling us, nothing holding us back, if we dare to believe it.

Candy and Mistrust

While riding the bus today, I had a peculiar experience. A man decided to share some candy with the rest of the passengers. He had a pretty large bag of candy, and walked through the bus, offering everyone some of it. Why he did it I don’t know, he probably just realized that he wouldn’t be able to eat all of it himself, and wanted to share it instead of tossing it.

What struck me was the painfully obvious reaction from everyone he offered some of his candy to. Not a single passenger accepted it. It was so bizarre, and yet so predictable. My own first thoughts were also very skeptical and mistrusting, I was tip-toeing into the borderland of disgust when he offered two small girls some of his candy. Maybe it was a natural reaction from my part, triggered by the fear of pedophiles so inherent in the society I live in. Still I am ashamed, this man was not a pedophile, nor did he wish to do any harm to anybody. He just wished to share some of what was in his possession with the people around him. I am so ashamed that I mistrusted him, and initially rejected him. Intuitively I concluded that something must have been wrong with the candy. How deeply terrible this is! How have we come to this far? We are so afraid of our fellow human beings, and so convinced that others want to do us harm, that we, in the face of an open and sincere expression of generosity, reject each other. This man didn’t want anything in return, he just asked me to take a couple of pieces of candy and enjoy them. I am so glad that he continued speaking after I initially rejected him, which gave me a couple of seconds to catch myself, and act consciously instead. I am so glad that I did, because I used a possibility to base my action on faith in another persons goodness, instead of acting out of fear. Still, I truly regret that I didn’t accept what he was offering from the beginning. Instead of doubting him, I should have thanked him deeply for what he was doing. Whether he knew it or not, he wasn’t just sharing some candy, he was challenging one of the most strangely persistent barriers we invent to defend ourselves.