How can hope and despair be akin?

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Hope and despair came into it later. I think both are only truly understood when we experience the depths that life has to offer, and for some this can come at a very young age, for others it happens later in life as the events we have been through take their toll.

Very true. Many older folks look at the younger generations and think "They can't possibly understand.", somehow forgetting what it was like to be young and in pain. The worst is still the worst for an individual, no matter how much worse the worst was for another. I know that that's a choppy sentence, but I can't think of a better way to convey it.

I'm 18. Even close friends don't know what my worst was. Two, maybe three, people in the world have a pretty decent idea. They look at me and see the kind of annoying person that is good at just about everything she does. To quote a friend, I "have all the luck". Untrue. I've felt more deeply than I care to remember. My "luck" disappeared on me for quite length of time. My worst was bad by anyone's standards. But you know what? The worst gives you hope. It's not that hope finds its way through, forcing it's way past the darkness that Lal describes here:

Originally Posted by Lal

Anyone who has suffered depression will understand why hope and despair are akin, as the despair may take you down to the bottom of a very dark well, but the hope is the tiny chink of light that helps guide you out again, even if you do not realise it for some time. If the hope was not there then the despair would take over.

When you hit despair, you know that there's only one way to go. Things can't get any worse. You hope like hell that this really is despair. Talk about a backwards idea, but follow it for a moment: when you sink that low, you want nothing more than for it to be rock bottom. You know that once you're there, the only way for your life to go is up. That's slightly comforting. The hope comes in in terms of "Please, please let this be a worst, because if I get a papercut in the next thirty seconds..."

I remember discussing death with counselors. I've been told by many that a person is least suicidal when they've hit despair. They're too exhausted to bother and they know deep down that it can't get any worse. The most worry comes just a bit before despair... when things really suck and the person is terrified that it will only get worse. Despair allows for hope on the part of the individual, on the part of his or her friends, on the part of everyone. Once you hit despair, you can go through life with the philosophy "Hey, I've lived through ____. It's not like it can get any worse." That's quite cheerful, in a cynical sort of way. You know that if you could handle what you already did, you can handle something else. A whimsical example was last term's term paper. I look at this term with this philosophy: "I got an A on a 20 page term paper about literary theory. I can handle this term's 10 page paper." or "I had X professor last term. I can handle anyone's class now."

You know that you've worked your hardest, you hit despair, and you bounced back (even if it was an itty bitty bounce that didn't go very high the first time). Once despair is in the picture, hope is also.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Thank you very much for your answers. I do hope no-one has gotten too upset by replying to or reading this.

It's an interesting subject on its own so I hope you'll continue to post some thoughts; but I'm realising that the contrast I was originally thinking about was between happiness or content and despair, rather than hope and despair.

Big difference. Thanks!

[Child of the 7th Age]

Eomer,

Certainly don't apologize. You've obviously hit a chord for many of us or we wouldn't be furiously scribbling.

Yes, your contrast between "despair" and "contentment/happiness" certainly holds. I think both hope and despair involve a deep emotional response. Content/happiness to me does not connote that depth of emotional involvement as we experience in either hope or despair (in contrast to "joy", for example). In that sense, hope and despair are much closer to one another than despair and happiness/contentment.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Child, I had indeed intended to throw joy in with happiness. I am familiar with the supposed difference between the two but I'm not sure of its merit (or whether it's relevant to what I'm writing about).

I would put despair/unhappiness/(even) melancholy on one side (and I know this is extremely simplistic) with joy/happiness/contentment on the other.

What your responses have shown me is that the concept of hope really doesn't fit in with what I want to say.

[Child of the 7th Age]

I understand. Although I am not a Christian, my own perception of "joy" (sehnsucht) is heavily influenced by C. S. Lewis and other "romantics" who view it as a special kind of longing or a cosmic pointer.

[Roa_Aoife]

Indeed, though I would venture to say that contentment is much deeper than happiness. I myself have never put much stock in surface emotions, and tend to discount them if they go against reason. (Just call me Dr. Spock.) What I mean by "surface emotions" are those feelings that come and go easily. Good moods, bad moods, happiness, sadness, anger, frustration, fear- all of these come and go depending on our body chemistry. There is little to no meaning or depth in them.

All of these have deeper counter parts, though; things that stay with us, that last. These come from our very souls, and are an outpouring of our hearts. Joy, rage, sorrow, etc. The outside world cannot affect them so well as the inside can. This what is inside you, deep within, and they make up your inner being.

As for contentment, love, peace, etc- I would not call these emotions so much as choices. I choose to love someone, whether I feel like it or not. Those of you who are/were married know that you don't always feel like loving your spouse, but you can choose to do so anyway. I choose to be content with my life. I may do something to change it, but I can be content while waiting.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Not sure if this is related to Tolkien at all but I'm not sure I agree with you, Roa. From a biological perspective, I don't think there's any difference between rage and anger, or between joy and happiness.

Joy, and my dictionary backs me up, is just a strong happiness.

Although this is an interesting discussion, perhaps it's gone too far past that Aragorn quotation.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

My initial thought is that both hope and despair are directed toward the future so in that way they are alike. You hope for a good outcome and are in despair when you fear a bad one.

More specifically both are wrapped up in desire -- you hope for the outcome you desire but despair that your desire will not be achieved. When I look at it this way it seems to me that perhaps rather than representing opposite states of mind or emotion hope and despair are two ways of describing the same feeling...? Or more simply, you can't have one without the other because both exist upon the same precondition: imperfect knowledge.

If you know for an absolute fact that your desire is going to be fulfilled then you aren't experiencing hope but expectation. If you know for an absolute fact that your desire is going to be denied then you aren't experiencing despair but sadness. Hope is made hope only insofar as it exists alongside the fear that you won't gain your desire; despair is made despair only insofar as it exists alongside the possibility that maybe you could were circumstances different.

So perhaps when Aragorn find at the "brink" that "hope and despair are akin" he is confronting the fact that the future is at an absolute crisis -- the future is itself torn between the conquest of evil and evil's triumph. The hope (rather than the absolute knowledge) that Sauron will fail exists only because of the despairing thought that he won't; the despair (rather than the absoulte knowledge) that he will triumph exists only because there's still hope that he won't.

To desire something necessarily engenders hope and despair: having something to desire gives you hope that you will have it, but it also becomes something that you despair about losing. At the moment Aragorn makes his statement the desire felt by himself and his followers is as painfully accute as it is profound -- they don't just desire a precious object or another person or even a better future but the fall of Sauron. Their desire is that the whole course of history will be altered from bad to good -- that the fundamental nature of their world will be changed forever and that evil as an incarnate force in their lives will disappear.

[HerenIstarion]

hope and despair are directed toward the future

Verily, but not solely. More often than not they both look back to the past, but despair more so - I hope (amdir) things will go well as they always did go well in the past, I despair for everything is already lost (in the past, even if this 'past' was minute ago), and there is nothing to look forward to - hope (amdir) for any more.

Estel is in present - I believe that all His designs are for my good (and for my joy), and I do the 'believing' now. Both Amdir and despair need reason or cause (coming, again, from the past), Estel does not - there is no reason to believe, one just does or does not. I agree with davem - Estel can not be akin to despair, the very belief excludes possibility of despair, whilst Amdir surely can.

PS Almost forgot about 'akin' - they are akin as they cross at one point - Frodo is Aragorn's reason to hope or to despair. Hope-estel makes him fight, but he can't help going on hoping (amdir) and despairing, for here he has cause and reason - frail thread (as Gandalf told Theoden) on which the fate is suspended:

As I have begun, so I will go on. We come now to the very brink, where hope and despair are akin. To waver is to fall. Let none now reject the counsels of Gandalf, whose long labours against Sauron come at last to their test

There are all three here - estel, amdir and despair. The way of action (for hope and despair here are not expressions of idle state, but of the action) chosen at the Council of Elrond is the mix of hope and despair - for every step they take through the book is indeed 'walking on the brink'. And estel (Hope in Eru) is expressed through Gandalf - 'let none now reject...'

PPS I've been a bit hasty yesterday - I did not intend to say that the meaning Aragorn may be putting into the phrase comes down only to my PS. As in other matters, Tolkien is like Shrek and onions - many-layered. For two, Aragorn may indeed be 'being clever' - meaning that highly paradoxical turn of phrase is intended to wind up his listeners, make them feel urgent importance of matters being discussed.