I'd like to think there is still hope. Hope for the world, hope for me, hope for everybody. Hope that this gets better, if not easier. Hope that enough of us learn enough of the lessons that it'll be worth it.

But I'm not sure I know what hope feels like. I'm not sure if I managed to even kindle that flame before stamping it out sometime in junior high. I mean, there are things I would like to see, to have, to be the case. But, hope? Hoping strikes me as more proactive than wishing. Wishes are whispered into your pillow and sent flying off into the void. Hope, on the other hand, is a persistent thing. Or should be, I guess?

I don't do it, anyway. All kinds of things would be nice, but to actually expect that life, that the universe, that God would just permit nice things to be the case? Tut tut, dear child. That is obviously madness. Such is the deep and enduring pessimism I operate under: "Why bother? It'll never work."

And yet! And yet, and yet. I sat for hours as a child and was fed a steady diet of hope for a better future centuries beyond the impossibilities of tomorrow. Fifteen hours a week, minimum, of watching utopia practised by four intrepid crews of a glorious Federation's star fleet. That is what they did, too: they practised it. They built it, piece by piece, with intention. Where damage was sustained, they mended it; and when the structure failed, they strengthened it. Night after night, hour after hour.

But, still! Still the doubt. Still the disbelief. Still the faithless wandering. But I could see it was possible. The world could be better. Could never be done, of course, but that wasn't the fault of the future. We just suck. Collectively. So, forget it.

My real love in space, though, wasn't in any figment of glories to be here in our own galaxy, but in glories a long time ago and far, far away. Sagely space wizards and faultless farm boys were much more my speed. A new hope! One fulfilled at a great distance, with no bearing on my own circumstances. The day we went to the video store and rented a Star Wars movie for the first time, my sister protested the choice, groaning that I would just become obsessed with it. It saddens me, remembering that now and realising she probably knew me then far better than I ever have managed to know her.

Anyway. Why this digression? Star Wars. A New Hope. The theme or whatever is hope, sure, yeah, haha. The point of all this is that is pretty much the only hobby I developed any kind of serious passion for; the closest thing I had to a source of hope. I'd had no real friends, or hobbies, or anything. But I loved Star Wars. Loved the movies, loved the books, loved the games, loved the Lego sets and action figures, loved the wicked awesome poster of Jango Fett I had on my wall. Loved to make up stories in my head about adventures I could've had, if I'd lived in those ancient times, among the heroes of the Rebellion.

But I learned something in junior high. I learned that most of my peers thought Star Wars was silly, and that a weird kid like me loving it so much was even sillier.

I don't remember, at the time, knowing or thinking about why I was doing it. I just remember grabbing some garbage bags and putting every action figure and every poster and put them in the trash. Didn't even think to send them for donation somewhere. Just straight into a black bag to be trucked to the landfill and forgotten. Mom wouldn't've tolerated the destruction of the books, so those stayed, but the collection stopped growing. The Lego sets included some cool pieces, and so were spared the culling, but I don't think I even picked up the Jar Jar minifig ever again. And games were expensive, and still fun, if a bit nerdy.

I still liked Star Wars. But, by the time Revenge of the Sith hit theatres, I was no longer enthralled. I tried pretending I wanted to be some kind of rock star or activist or computer nerd or who knows what. But I'm pretty sure that's when I stopped really caring about things.

I'm not mad at my classmates, and I certainly don't blame them. It was my choice to respond the way I had, and it has been my choice to let that fear of other people's judgement continue to guide my responses. I chose to shut myself off, and I have chosen over and over again keep the lights out and the gates closed, even while the garbage inside is slowly crushing me.


Today I called Mom, watched videos on the internet, and played video games. I also wrote enough of a song to add it to the site.


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