Hope and Despair

Over the last year, I have been trying to shift my own story, in terms of climate change and the environment, away from doom and gloom.  This process has worked to some degree, I have been able to muster more hope for the future, but this process has been slightly rocky. It has been challenging to consider such huge environmental problems, without occasionally slipping out of the place of hope toward a darker mind space.  Recently we have begun to explore the place and purpose of despair in EECO 509.

During the conversation between Renee and Elin, we, the audience, were able to listen in on a discussion which explored the spectrum of Hope and Despair.  In the last year, I have felt despair, despair around the continued development of micro hydro in remote natural areas, despair around the seemingly endless oil spills, and despair around the juggernaut of consumer culture in North America.  In light of my aspiration to approach environmental issues from a place of hope, these emotional responses I was having, were quite disturbing.  Throughout Wednesday we explored the empowerment of hope through the acknowledgement of despair.

Despair rests just under the surface of the psyche, embedded in feeling of powerlessness and meaninglessness. Expressing despair often leads to concomitant experience of fear and anger. (Koger & Winter, 2010, p.89).  Naturally, I don’t strive to feel these strong feelings of despair or hopelessness, they had felt to be counterproductive to deal with.  Koger and Winter go on to mention that by repressing these darker aspects of our psyche, we are draining our energy (2010, p.89). Finally, they mention that “once the feeling is fully experienced, the unconscious processes are interrupted and the full power of the person is newly available (Koger & Winter, 2010, p.89).  Though acknowledgement of the fully spectrum of hope and despair and by moving though the challenging emotions, I am continuing to develop my mature hope.

I think that the following poem by Douglas Malloch provides a good analogy for the development of mature hope.

Good Timber

The tree that never had to fight

For sun and sky and air and light,

But stood out in the open plain

And always got its share of rain,

Never became a forest king

But lived and died a scrubby thing.

The man who never had to toil

To gain and farm his patch of soil,

Who never had to win his share

Of sun and sky and light and air,

Never became a manly man

But lived and died as he began.

Good timber does not grow with ease:

The stronger wind, the stronger trees;

The further sky, the greater length;

The more the storm, the more the strength.

By sun and cold, by rain and snow,

In trees and men good timbers grow.

Where thickest lies the forest growth,

We find the patriarchs of both.

And they hold counsel with the stars

Whose broken branches show the scars

Of many winds and much of strife.

This is the common law of life.

by Douglas Malloch

Koger, S. & Winter, D. (2010). The Psychology of Environmental Problems. Psychology Press. pp.

Malloch, D. (n.d.). Good Timber. Retrieved from http://holyjoe.org/poetry/malloch.htm