An Alternative to Hope (From Emily)

Summary

Feminist Survival Project – "An Alternative to Hope (From Emily)" Released: November 13, 2024

In the episode titled "An Alternative to Hope (From Emily)" from the Feminist Survival Project podcast, hosts Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski explore the intricate relationship between hope, despair, and faith. Drawing from personal experiences and philosophical insights, Emily delves into alternative frameworks for sustaining individuals who find traditional notions of hope insufficient or even counterproductive in the face of overwhelming stress and mental health challenges.

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1. Introduction to the Concept of Hope

Emily Nagoski opens the discussion by referencing John Green's approach to combating depression through hope, particularly highlighting his June 25 video where he emphasizes taking a break from promoting hope ([00:45]). Emily appreciates the comfort that hope provides to many but quickly pivots to address those for whom this conventional understanding of hope doesn't resonate.

"Hopelessness is a lie and despair is a lie."
— Emily Nagoski ([01:27])

She introduces Emily Dickinson's poignant metaphor:
"Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all."
This imagery underscores the relentless and sustaining nature of hope for many individuals ([01:22]).

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2. The Fragility of Hope

Emily discusses the experiences of people whose hope has been severely compromised by life's adversities. She explains that for some, hope becomes an untenable concept, leading to a sense of utter helplessness.

"I lost my ability to justify my thoughts, feelings, and plans based on what I thought was possible. I felt totally helpless."
— Emily Nagoski ([02:33])

Drawing from her personal journey, Emily shares that her hope "broke" in the early 2000s, leading her to seek alternatives that could sustain her without relying on the fragile link between desired outcomes and their perceived probabilities.

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3. Redefining Hope: Introducing "Unimaginable Hope" and Faith

Inspired by the work of Adrian Martin, a moral philosopher, Emily introduces a nuanced understanding of hope. Martin's model conceptualizes hope as a combination of desire for an outcome and the belief in its possibility, albeit uncertain.

"Hope is justifying your feelings, thoughts, and plans based on your assessment that a desired outcome is possible but not certain."
— Adrian Martin ([04:12])

Emily extends this by presenting an alternative he terms "unimaginable hope." Unlike traditional hope, this form is non-contingent and unlinked from the probability of outcomes, functioning instead as a steadfast faith.

"Faith is an unimaginable hope. A hope for something we believe without reason is on the other side of the mountain."
— Emily Nagoski ([05:07])

This redefinition allows individuals to persist in their endeavors despite lacking a concrete belief in positive outcomes.

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4. Personal Experiences and Coping Mechanisms

Emily shares her struggle with depression, describing how conventional hope could no longer sustain her. Instead, she cultivated faith—a belief in the journey itself rather than its destination.

"My faith is not in any supernatural critter, but in the arc of history, bending toward justice as long as all of us keep pressing it toward justice."
— Emily Nagoski ([13:00])

She draws inspiration from Sonia Renee Taylor, who embodies this concept through her reflections on ancestors striving for freedom amidst despair.

"Please, life, surprise me. Shock me with your grace. Astound me with your kindness."
— Sonia Renee Taylor ([09:30])

Emily emphasizes that this faith is grounded in an unwavering commitment to progress, independent of immediate results or visible transformations.

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5. Embracing Despair and Building Resilience

Acknowledging that not everyone relates to this alternative framework, Emily discusses her approach to reconciling with despair. Instead of viewing despair as an antagonist, she befriended it, fostering a respectful coexistence.

"I developed a trusting and respectful relationship with my despair because I realized I would probably never live without it."
— Emily Nagoski ([12:58])

This acceptance allows her to navigate life with depression without being paralyzed by hopelessness, maintaining productivity and purpose through faith.

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6. Concluding Thoughts and Recommendations

In her closing remarks, Emily differentiates between hope and faith, advocating for the latter as a viable sustenance for those whose hope has been fractured. She recommends Adrian Martin’s "How We Hope" for listeners interested in the philosophical underpinnings of her perspective.

"If hope has stopped working for you, I want you to know that there is something else beyond hope that is not contingent on whether or not you think you can make a difference."
— Emily Nagoski ([13:00])

Emily concludes by reaffirming her commitment to her path, underscored by an unwavering faith in collective progress towards justice, even in the absence of traditional hope.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• "Hopelessness is a lie and despair is a lie."
  — Emily Nagoski ([01:27])

• "Faith is an unimaginable hope. A hope for something we believe without reason is on the other side of the mountain."
  — Emily Nagoski ([05:07])

• "Please, life, surprise me. Shock me with your grace. Astound me with your kindness."
  — Sonia Renee Taylor ([09:30])

• "I developed a trusting and respectful relationship with my despair because I realized I would probably never live without it."
  — Emily Nagoski ([12:58])

• "If hope has stopped working for you, I want you to know that there is something else beyond hope that is not contingent on whether or not you think you can make a difference."
  — Emily Nagoski ([13:00])

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Final Thoughts

"An Alternative to Hope (From Emily)" offers a profound exploration of sustaining mental resilience beyond traditional hope. By introducing the concept of "unimaginable hope" and intertwining it with faith, Emily provides a nuanced pathway for individuals grappling with deep-seated despair. This episode serves as a beacon for those who find conventional hope inadequate, presenting a philosophical and practical framework to navigate the complexities of mental health within the feminist landscape.

Transcript

[Emily]

Foreign.

[John]

Hello, friends. What you're about to hear is a video I actually made for YouTube several months ago, but someone on Instagram requested that I post it there after the election because they thought it might be helpful. And then a bunch of people there actually did find it helpful. And so my husband suggested that we post it here on the podcast feed. So it's only 15 minutes, and it's on the nature of hope or how to live without it.

[Adrian Martin]

If you.

[John]

If you haven't. If you haven't got a hope, hope it helps.

[Emily]

Hi, I'm Emily. I was inspired to make this video by John Green's June 25 video where he talks about taking a break for a month from Vlogbrothers depression. But really, it's inspired by every video John Green has ever made about depression, because he concludes that video with familiar.

[Adrian Martin]

Assurances from him that despair is a.

[Emily]

Lie and hopelessness is a lie, that.

[Adrian Martin]

Life is meaningful and your life matters.

[Emily]

He says he's going to spend the.

[Adrian Martin]

Month of July reminding himself that Emily.

[Emily]

Dickinson was right when she wrote that hope is the thing with feathers that.

[Adrian Martin]

Perches in the soul and sings the.

[Emily]

Tune without the words and never stops at all. There are a lot of people in the comments of that video saying how much they need to hear that, how much it helps to hear that. And if you're one of those people, that is fantastic for you, hopelessness is a lie and despair is a lie. And this video is not for you. This video is for people who cannot.

[Adrian Martin]

Hear the little bird perched in their.

[Emily]

Soul singing the tune without the words. The people for whom hopelessness and despair, it's not productive for them to think of it as a lie. This video is for the people you.

[Adrian Martin]

Might have in your life who, for.

[Emily]

Their sanity, to save their lives, need to abandon hope. Because for some of us, there comes a time when we hurt so hard that our brains push off. Push us off an emotional cliff into a spit into a pit of despair. And we land badly.

[Adrian Martin]

And when we drag ourselves up, we find that the little bird of the.

[Emily]

Emily Dickinson poem is broken. I mean, maybe the bird's on life support and you can't bring yourself to pull the plug, because what the hell kind of damaged person can go on without a working hope in their brain or in their soul?

[Adrian Martin]

It happened to me in the early 2000s. My hope broke, the song stopped. And I'm willing to believe that it's not permanent.

[Emily]

But it has been 20 years, and.

[Adrian Martin]

In that time I've managed to finish two advanced degrees and write three New.

[Emily]

York Times best selling self help books without it. So I think I have a viable alternative to offer. If you, like me, find yourself in.

[Adrian Martin]

Need of this desperate measure of replacing.

[Emily]

Hope because it's like your hope broke. I want to preface this by saying that nothing I say can take the place of medical care, including therapy and.

[Adrian Martin]

If it's right for you, medication. I've been medicated. I've been medicated the whole time and.

[Emily]

It has definitely helped to keep me alive.

[Adrian Martin]

But to explain my alternative to hope, first I have to explain what hope means to me. I follow moral philosopher and author of.

[Emily]

How We Adrian Martin, who developed an.

[Adrian Martin]

Incorporation model that formulates hope as a.

[Emily]

Desire for an outcome and the belief.

[Adrian Martin]

That that outcome is possible but not certain. And you use your assessment of the.

[Emily]

Possibility of this desired future as a.

[Adrian Martin]

Justification for your feelings, thoughts and plans.

[John]

Got that?

[Adrian Martin]

Hope is justifying your feelings, thoughts and plans based on your assessment that a desired outcome is possible but not certain.

[Emily]

Martin's point of view derives from her.

[Adrian Martin]

Work in phase one trials for cancer drugs.

[Emily]

Phase one medical trials aren't about proving a drug is effective. They're just about proving that a drug isn't dangerous.

[Adrian Martin]

Cancer patients for whom no other treatment.

[Emily]

Has been effective may participate in phase.

[Adrian Martin]

One trials not because they have any.

[Emily]

Reason to believe that a drug would treat their cancer. It would be a wild coincidence one in a thousand if it were effective.

[Adrian Martin]

Instead, they participate because they want to be part of the scientific process that.

[Emily]

Makes better drugs available to people in the future.

[Adrian Martin]

But some participants had hope for treatment. Sure, it's one in a thousand, but.

[Emily]

Maybe I'm the one they might think, whereas other people basically had the same information the other way around. Okay, sure, it might help, but it's one in a thousand in this way of thinking about hope. The thing with feathers sings its song as long as it can justify its singing with its assessment of the probability of the desired outcome. For some people, one in a thousand is plenty of reason to keep singing. The reason hope matters by this definition, is that a lot of people would use their assessment that something is unlikely as a justification to do nothing at all. You see no hope, no action. And that's why most people cling really hard to hope. They feel like abandoning hope is abandoning.

[Adrian Martin]

All reason to keep trying.

[Emily]

And that is what broke for me. I had a series of life experiences that damaged the link between my assessment of whether or not a desired outcome is possible and whether or not I think, feel, or plan anything about that desired outcome. I Lost my ability to justify my thoughts, feelings and plans based on what I thought was possible. Super short version, I felt totally helpless. That nothing I do made a difference. That what I did might in fact make the world a worse place. But then I found what I call the secret medicine. Hope is a sustaining energy. It keeps us working through trials when we're being challenged, but it is contingent on that assessment of the probability of that desired outcome. What Adrian Martin showed me was the language for a non contingent sustaining energy, which cannot be interfered with by any assessment, no matter how dire of the probability of a desired outcome. That non contingent sustaining energy is what Adrian Martin calls an unimaginable hope. What's a name for the emotion when you have no reason to believe that a wanted future may come to pass and yet you continue to work toward it just as if you did believe you could make a difference? What is the name for that emotion when you walk toward the world you want, knowing that each step might be off a cliff? Adrian Martin calls that faith. And look, I'm an atheist and yet I walk with this thing she calls faith. Because I know what my job is here on Earth, and I'm going to keep doing my job, even though I have good reason to believe I will never see the world I am working to create. My faith is not in any supernatural critter, but in the arc of history, bending toward justice as long as all of us keep pressing it toward justice. I think this unimaginable hope is what Sonia Renee Taylor talks about when she imagines her ancestors being told they were free. She said all their food, shelter, meager resources tied up in the institution of slavery. I am sure they feared what would happen as the Civil War raged. She said slavery was what was known. Freedom was the vast unknowable, except in their souls, in their very bones. She said, I think unimaginable hope, too, is what Sonya Renee Taylor invokes in her prayer for the collective. She says, I found myself today saying, please, life, surprise me. Shock me with your grace. Astound me with your kindness. Show me that there is something beyond what it is that I imagined. Show me what is beyond me. Because what is beyond me is what we need right now. What is beyond us, what we know, what can be known to be clear. She also talks about imaginable hope in beautiful, inspiring and concrete terms. When she talks about Terry Marshall's description of our world's challenge. Challenges as a battle of imagination. She says, our assignment is to imagine a different world, and I can do that. You can too. I hope you will. It is a powerful practice to imagine the desired outcome. Imagine the world you want. That's not what's broken in me. What's broken in me is not my ability to imagine, but the sense that I'm justified in believing that I can create the outcome I imagine. What's not broken in me is my sense that I am justified in believing that I am working to create what I can't imagine. What Sonya Renee Taylor calls the vast unknowable. Faith is an unimaginable hope. A hope for something we believe without reason is on the other side of the mountain at its simplest. I want to offer a different metaphor, a different poem, one that sustains me in a way that the little bird and her song can't. Because my little bird of hope stopped singing a couple of decades ago and I kept living. It's a bit of a poem by Rumi because as a 21st century middle class Hoyt lady, of course I relate so hard to a Sufi medieval poet, but translated by Coleman it goes. There is a secret medicine given only to those who hurt so hard they can't hope. The hopers would feel slighted if they knew. The secret medicine I've been given is faith that something I'll never experience is on the other side of the mountain. And so I climb some days when my depression is extra bad. My unimaginable hope, the secret medicine, is my belief without reason that even though I am in the deepest darkness, my next step will not be off a cliff, but onto solid ground. I had a recent bout of depression where each step felt like a spongy marsh that could easily seem to be leading to a mire as each step got spongier and spongier and eventually it would swallow me. And yet I kept moving forward, which I mean breathing in and breathing out, because I believe in whatever it is that's on the other side of the marsh. It's what I can't imagine with my human mind. It's what I can't ask anyone else to describe because it is beyond human knowing. And that is how I survive, sometimes even thrive without a functioning little bird. My hope is broken. Look, there's a lot of ways that I live with depression that doesn't follow standard therapeutic procedures. And I know that this is not for everyone. Adrian Martin herself called unimaginable hope rather esoteric. I don't even recommend it. If hope is an option for you, do hope. Hope is amazing. I remember what it feels like to hope, and I Don't want to talk about how it felt to lose it. Rumi's secret medicine is for those of us who hurt so hard we can't hope. But even if your hope works, maybe you have someone in your life whose hope is broken. And maybe you can talk to them about the secret medicine. I've done other unorthodox things to cope with my depression. I have befriended my despair instead of saying that it's a liar. I developed a trusting and respectful relationship.

[Adrian Martin]

Worth it.

[Emily]

But that was really hard work that I only did because I had to, when I realized I would probably never live without it. So I might as well be on good terms with it. Like a neighbor you don't like who will never, ever move away. Most people's depression moves away. I live with the kind of intractable depression that sets up camp in your brain early in life. And for a couple decades now, I have done that without the thing I would call hope in its place. I'm sorry if you can hear my cat yelling. She's 18. She loves to complain. It's her favorite hobby. But in the place of hope, I grew a thing the moral philosophers call faith. I know what my job is, and I will do my job every day that I am capable of doing it.

[Adrian Martin]

Not believe I can rid the world.

[Emily]

Of cisheteropatriarchal misogyny, but because I have faith that this is the path that leads ultimately to an unimaginable future. If you can hope, hope. If you can't hope, maybe read some moral psychology. How We Hope by Adrian Martin. It's pretty dancing technical. There's a. There's a lot of Kant in it, I'll be honest. But if hope has stopped working for you, I want you to know that there is something else beyond hope that is not contingent on whether or not you think you can make a difference. It's contingent on absolutely nothing. Because anything you were never reasoned into, you can never be reasoned out of. You cannot reason me out of my faith that the arc of history bends toward justice or my belief that way more than half of us are working to drag that arc of history closer and closer to a better world.