Why Anchored Hope is Not The Thing With Feathers

Hope isn’t something we wait for. It’s something we build — together, deliberately, even when we don’t feel it.

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Dear friends

Oftentimes, we think of hope as something external, something that comes to us like a gift or a guest: “I just don’t feel any hope right now,” or “I wish hope would return.”

Emily Dickinson famously called hope “the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.” She portrayed it as beautiful, but delicate. Flighty. Something that visits us gently and sings quietly. But a thing with feathers can fly away. It can vanish the moment conditions get rough — and under authoritarianism, they will.

Framing hope as feathered and flighty reinforces the idea that it’s either present or not — that we wait for it, feel grateful when it appears, mourn when it goes. Hope then becomes passive. External. Something we may — or may not — be visited by.

This puts us in a position of waiting, not acting. Watching the horizon instead of doing the work of orienting to what matters, or reaching for others, or planting something small in hostile ground. There’s no blame here — it’s human to want hope to show up when things feel impossible — but under authoritarian pressure, that posture won’t hold.

When we think of hope as something external, we place it outside of our own agency. It becomes like weather — out of our reach. Maybe it shows up, maybe it doesn’t. And that way of thinking turns hope into something we receive, not something we take part in. We can’t build with it. We can’t shape it. We can’t pass it on deliberately. We just notice its presence or absence, and try to cope accordingly.

Authoritarianism is not a storm that passes, but a system that presses in. It isolates, erodes trust, and disorients. It’s designed to make us doubt what’s real, question our own power, and give up on each other. In that kind of context, hope can’t be a bird that flutters in and lifts our spirits — that version will not survive.

Waiting to be visited by hope leaves us vulnerable to despair, apathy, or paralysis. It suggests hope is fragile — and thus, if it breaks, we break with it.

Authoritarianism thrives when we stop believing our actions matter — when we wait for the right mood to strike before we resist. Thinking of hope as something that visits — like inspiration, like luck — encourages exactly that. It teaches us to look inward for the feeling, instead of outward for the connection, the signal, or the next right step.

So I ask you to consider this: what if hope is not something we wait for? What if it’s something we build — together, deliberately, even when we don’t feel it?

The kind of hope that doesn’t have wings, but roots to hold weight. That stands its ground through the fiercest of storms. Not something light enough to escape, but something strong enough to endure.

In times like these, we should not think of hope as a feeling. We should not even think of hope as a noun. Hope — for us — needs to be a verb. An action. A discipline. A deliberate orientation. Only then can hope as a feeling endure.

Sometimes we need to look at words through the lens of a different language to fully understand their meaning. Because sometimes those words in one language might carry a weight, a resonance, or an historical context that just doesn’t come through in another. That can help us loosen our grip on the narrow meanings we’ve inherited, and instead, encounter the words as something alive, layered, and evolving. And that can lead us to the true power of the words — not just what we assume they mean today.

“To hope” are among those words.

To better understand their true depth, it’s helpful to turn to a language that held the words of philosophers and mystics — Latin — and the word sperāre, which also gives us espérer (to hope) in French.

At its core, sperāre means to hope for.

That little preposition for does a lot of heavy lifting.

To hope for something orients us towards an outcome.

It means we are aligning ourselves with something that matters. Something worthy of our attention, our wait, our care. Not in theory, but in practice. We’ve identified something we’re not willing to lose, even if we can’t reach it yet, or might not ever reach it — or at least not in the form we first imagined.

To hope for something creates community, joining us with others who share the same vision and values. And when we hope for someone’s justice, or safety, or wellbeing, we are choosing to stand with them, to protect, uplift, or devote ourselves to them. Again, that links hope to value. It says: this is something meaningful to me or others.

Sperāre also means to look forward to.

To look forward is to stretch ourselves toward something that doesn’t yet exist. It opens a space between now and not-yet, and asks us to live inside it. Yes, that space can feel exposed, because it’s a place where there are no guarantees. But there is room — to prepare, to adapt, and to decide who we’ll be when the thing we’re waiting for arrives.

Looking forward to something in this context, then, isn’t about passively marking time — it’s about shaping it. It lets us build not just for the future, but from it — preparing the ground as if it could be. Because we begin to notice what would need to be true for that future to take shape, and we start embodying those conditions now.

If we hope for justice, we must practise fairness. If we hope for truth, we must practise honesty. If we hope for safety, we must be people all others can be safe with.

And when we look forward together — when hope is held in common — that direction becomes durable. Shared anticipation can become shared effort, giving shape, language and momentum to what is not yet here.

And finally, sperāre means to expect with desire or confidence.

When we hope for something, it is twinned with an emotional investment — a deep desire, a longing, a yearning for the thing hoped for. So to hope for something is to bind part of our inner selves to something beyond our reach — and then continue on as though that tether matters more than the pain of waiting, or the weight of not knowing whether we’ll attain it.

It means we’ve made a quiet but irreversible decision: that this thing — this outcome, this possibility — is of such value to us, it is worthy not just of our thoughts, but of our care. Our grief. Our longing. Our loyalty.

Once we’ve set our hearts on something, the ache shapes how we see, what we hold back from, what we make space for.

We are living in proximity to something that hasn’t arrived — and may not — and yet we keep moving toward it. Not to keep ourselves busy, and not to feel better. But because the thing we hope for is too important to abandon.

If this is true, then despair is not simply the feeling that arises from the loss of hope.
Despair, too, is a form of action — one that gives rise to the feeling we recognise as despair.

Let’s return to the Latin.

Desperāre — to despair — literally means to turn away from hope (from de- meaning “away from” or “down from,” and sperāre, to hope). Hope and despair are built from the same root. The difference is not in the substance, but in the direction: one turns toward something of value, while the other turns away.

And in French, the word désespérer literally means to be un-hoped. Not just sad. Un-hoped. Cut off from that reaching-toward. That dés- prefix signals a cutting off, an undoing, a closing of the door.

When we despair, it is because we no longer allow ourselves even the act of hoping. We turn away — not only from what could happen, but from our own longing, and the people who hold that longing with us. That action — that turning away — often leads to isolation, and despair feeds on that.

That’s why anchored hope is an act of strength, not naivety. It’s an active orientation toward that which we value.

Anchored hope does not deny that pain and difficulty are likely. It doesn’t pretend the odds are good, and it certainly doesn't guarantee arrival. But it gently draws us in the direction of what we hold dear even when the way seems blocked or unclear. It says: Even if I don’t know how or when, I am still moving towards this. Still reaching. And that reaching towards what we value — justice, healing, connection, safety, truth — is what keeps us human. It’s what stops us from becoming numb, or cruel, or lost.

In that way, anchored hope becomes our compass. It doesn’t give us a map, but it gives us orientation. When everything feels uncertain or overwhelming, it reminds us what direction to face — again and again.

So when everything feels uncertain, ask yourself this: What am I anchoring to?
What do I still believe is worth reaching for — not because it’s guaranteed, but because it matters?

Hope is not about summoning a feeling. It’s about deciding what matters enough to stay connected to it — even when the distance between that connection and the world around you causes your heart to ache. Under authoritarianism, this is how hope remains resilient: not light and uplifting, but anchored. Anchored in relationship. Anchored in values we refuse to abandon. Anchored in the future we still consider worth preparing for.

This doesn’t mean we’re sure what we hope for will happen. It means we’re sure that it should. And that’s what gives us direction — not certainty, but commitment.

When enough of us hold to that — not just privately, but together, out loud — it becomes harder for those in power to shift reality without resistance. Because people with anchored hope are harder to manipulate. Harder to isolate. Harder to wear down.

We know what we’re facing toward.

In times like these, that kind of hope is not a luxury. It’s not even comfort. It’s how we begin to build — not just something to survive the storm, but something that might outlast it.

In solidarity, as ever

— Lori

© Lori Corbet Mann, 2025

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This is the second post in a weekly thread sharing hope. New posts land each Monday, around 10am UTC.

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