This is a brilliant and necessary piece of work. In my comment on your Epstein analysis, I said the only path to real justice was to stop playing their rigged game and start building our own resilient institutions.
This article is the "how." It is the psychological prime mover for that construction.
"Anchored Hope" is the fuel required for the difficult work of economic secession. It is the discipline that forges a Phalanx cell and holds it together. It is the only effective countermeasure to the system's most potent weapon: the "Prison of Learned Helplessness."
You have not just written an article; you have drafted a foundational text for the rebellion. Thank you for bringing this to the table.
Thank you Fisk — for seeing the work, for naming what it’s trying to support, and for standing in that space of shared intention. I'm grateful you're here.
I’m sorry I haven’t responded to your correspondence yet. The delay isn’t due to disinterest, but because I just haven’t had the bandwidth to give it the attention it deserves. I didn’t want to dash off a reply just to be responsive. I want to meet it properly, and I will — as soon as I can.
Please forgive a digression into anecdote, but as a Conscientious Objector (1-A-O) during the Vietnam “Police Action” I was instructed to find Alternative Service. I spent five years teaching youth in therapeutic communities for drug addiction, mostly in Phoenix House.
One of the things that was not fraudulent about the place was a certain piece of advice. When a person was feeling a miserable failure, guilty perhaps for real harm done to others, defensive and altogether rotten, that person would be told usually in the “encounter” setting, to “Act as if . . .” That meant to act as if, from that moment, hope was at hand, that one could feel balanced, honorable and well.
That advice only worked if there was a supporting environment within which such things could be made true. That is where this community comes in.
Thank you, Carleton — truly. Your words mean so much.
Please don’t apologise — there was no digression, only a gift. The fact that you were a Conscientious Objector and spent those years working with young people in the grip of addiction… that kind of commitment, in such an urgent setting, is incredibly humbling.
Reading about your time at Phoenix House brought me back to my dad, who started a small charity in Glasgow when I was young, and spent several years working with young people struggling with drug addiction. So I have some sense of what that work asks of a person. He showed me that real compassion is active, not passive. You’ve lived that too.
“Act as if…”— what a powerful phrase. And you’re right: it only works when there’s a community strong enough to help someone believe it’s possible. I’m grateful to be in that kind of community with you.
Wow. I love etymology. It always makes words more powerful. I quoted that poem in June.
I think I never thought of hope as flighty. Maybe I am just too stubborn. Or not creative enough to imagine a hope that is fleeting.
You’re right though - hope needs to be anchored in intention, and looking forward to the change it wants to see, while acting that change on the journey to the future. Ethics require that we live the change we want to see in the world. Anything else would be disingenuous.
Lisa, it’s such a gift to be in conversation with someone who not only feels things deeply but can express them so beautifully — thank you.
I love etymology too! (Who knew we'd have quite so much in common?) And of course you quoted that poem back in June — your timing and intuition are always spot on. But please—“not creative enough”? You draw, you write poetry, you breathe creativity, Lisa. If anything, I think your hope is the kind that’s grounded and generous, something steady enough to carry others, too. That’s anything but a lack of imagination.
I couldn’t agree more about living the change. Hope without intention can float away, but when it’s tethered to ethics and action, that’s where transformation lives. ❤️
These days I suspect I would have been diagnosed as “high functioning and on the spectrum.” When I was a child, I was the super smart, hyperactive ADD little girl (when girls were almost never diagnosed as hyperactive or attention deficit) that drove her poor mother crazy from strange questions, wandering, and other misbehaviors. When I say I am not creative enough, it might be a misnomer - more my brain doesn’t work like 99% of the world (had an educational psychologist explain me to myself in my 20s - he was probably the best thing that ever happened to me, because I never understood why I felt so far apart from everyone else until the time I spent counseling with him - he actually taught me to believe I was human). So when I feel hope, it isn’t something conquerable with despair. I can believe that they exist simultaneously. For some reason, it has never occurred to me that hope might end. 😊
To me, by definition, hope has to exist outside of the day-to-day, or it wouldn’t be durable at all. It exists in the unrealized future.
There's a great passage from Navalny's autobiography with similar advice. One of these days, I will go through it and find it and send it along to you.
Actually, it’s not from espérer, Wayne! Believe it or not, this is one root I know off the top of my head and didn’t need to research. Aspire comes from the Latin root spirare, which means “to breathe.” I learned this some years ago when I wanted to know the root of inspire —which means “to breathe into” or “fill with spirit.” To me, it’s one of the most beautiful realisations that divine inspiration literally means breathing in God’s spirit.
Oh, really? Well, I stand corrected, and I see I'm not the only one who studies scripture, LOL. Then, it's what I've come to call a "false cognate". Not wrong in intent, maybe, but not quite accurate. Received!
Lori,
This is a brilliant and necessary piece of work. In my comment on your Epstein analysis, I said the only path to real justice was to stop playing their rigged game and start building our own resilient institutions.
This article is the "how." It is the psychological prime mover for that construction.
"Anchored Hope" is the fuel required for the difficult work of economic secession. It is the discipline that forges a Phalanx cell and holds it together. It is the only effective countermeasure to the system's most potent weapon: the "Prison of Learned Helplessness."
You have not just written an article; you have drafted a foundational text for the rebellion. Thank you for bringing this to the table.
In solidarity,
Fisk
Thank you Fisk — for seeing the work, for naming what it’s trying to support, and for standing in that space of shared intention. I'm grateful you're here.
I’m sorry I haven’t responded to your correspondence yet. The delay isn’t due to disinterest, but because I just haven’t had the bandwidth to give it the attention it deserves. I didn’t want to dash off a reply just to be responsive. I want to meet it properly, and I will — as soon as I can.
Yea, Verily, yea!
Lori
You are the best!
Please forgive a digression into anecdote, but as a Conscientious Objector (1-A-O) during the Vietnam “Police Action” I was instructed to find Alternative Service. I spent five years teaching youth in therapeutic communities for drug addiction, mostly in Phoenix House.
One of the things that was not fraudulent about the place was a certain piece of advice. When a person was feeling a miserable failure, guilty perhaps for real harm done to others, defensive and altogether rotten, that person would be told usually in the “encounter” setting, to “Act as if . . .” That meant to act as if, from that moment, hope was at hand, that one could feel balanced, honorable and well.
That advice only worked if there was a supporting environment within which such things could be made true. That is where this community comes in.
Thank You.
Thank you, Carleton — truly. Your words mean so much.
Please don’t apologise — there was no digression, only a gift. The fact that you were a Conscientious Objector and spent those years working with young people in the grip of addiction… that kind of commitment, in such an urgent setting, is incredibly humbling.
Reading about your time at Phoenix House brought me back to my dad, who started a small charity in Glasgow when I was young, and spent several years working with young people struggling with drug addiction. So I have some sense of what that work asks of a person. He showed me that real compassion is active, not passive. You’ve lived that too.
“Act as if…”— what a powerful phrase. And you’re right: it only works when there’s a community strong enough to help someone believe it’s possible. I’m grateful to be in that kind of community with you.
Wow. I love etymology. It always makes words more powerful. I quoted that poem in June.
I think I never thought of hope as flighty. Maybe I am just too stubborn. Or not creative enough to imagine a hope that is fleeting.
You’re right though - hope needs to be anchored in intention, and looking forward to the change it wants to see, while acting that change on the journey to the future. Ethics require that we live the change we want to see in the world. Anything else would be disingenuous.
You are so wise! ❤️
Lisa, it’s such a gift to be in conversation with someone who not only feels things deeply but can express them so beautifully — thank you.
I love etymology too! (Who knew we'd have quite so much in common?) And of course you quoted that poem back in June — your timing and intuition are always spot on. But please—“not creative enough”? You draw, you write poetry, you breathe creativity, Lisa. If anything, I think your hope is the kind that’s grounded and generous, something steady enough to carry others, too. That’s anything but a lack of imagination.
I couldn’t agree more about living the change. Hope without intention can float away, but when it’s tethered to ethics and action, that’s where transformation lives. ❤️
These days I suspect I would have been diagnosed as “high functioning and on the spectrum.” When I was a child, I was the super smart, hyperactive ADD little girl (when girls were almost never diagnosed as hyperactive or attention deficit) that drove her poor mother crazy from strange questions, wandering, and other misbehaviors. When I say I am not creative enough, it might be a misnomer - more my brain doesn’t work like 99% of the world (had an educational psychologist explain me to myself in my 20s - he was probably the best thing that ever happened to me, because I never understood why I felt so far apart from everyone else until the time I spent counseling with him - he actually taught me to believe I was human). So when I feel hope, it isn’t something conquerable with despair. I can believe that they exist simultaneously. For some reason, it has never occurred to me that hope might end. 😊
To me, by definition, hope has to exist outside of the day-to-day, or it wouldn’t be durable at all. It exists in the unrealized future.
There's a great passage from Navalny's autobiography with similar advice. One of these days, I will go through it and find it and send it along to you.
"In the name of democracy, let us all unite!"
This was such a good post, Lori! Thank you!
The state motto in South Carolina is" while I breath , I hope ."
Love this article about hope - anchored hope. It gives me a new way of thinking about it! Your words are empowering! Thank you❣️
You’re welcome Teresa — I’m so glad it landed for you. ❤️
Esperer=to hope. That must be where we get our word "aspire". Never connected the two like that before. Excellent, as always.
Actually, it’s not from espérer, Wayne! Believe it or not, this is one root I know off the top of my head and didn’t need to research. Aspire comes from the Latin root spirare, which means “to breathe.” I learned this some years ago when I wanted to know the root of inspire —which means “to breathe into” or “fill with spirit.” To me, it’s one of the most beautiful realisations that divine inspiration literally means breathing in God’s spirit.
Oh, really? Well, I stand corrected, and I see I'm not the only one who studies scripture, LOL. Then, it's what I've come to call a "false cognate". Not wrong in intent, maybe, but not quite accurate. Received!
I would use the term, "Vision."