Mandala #44: Some say "elsewhere" and some say "within" / Esperanza

"Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but, rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. The more unpropitious the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper that hope is. Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. In short, I think that the deepest and most important form of hope, the only one that can keep us above water and urge us to good works, and the only true source of the breathtaking dimension of the human spirit and its efforts, is something we get, as it were, from “elsewhere.” It is also this hope, above all, which gives us the strength to live and continually to try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now." (Vaclav Havel)

For years, the words in orange were taped to my drawing table.  My experience since then is that my deepest form of hope comes from within.  Does it matter where hope comes from?  That it came to me at all at this time of year in 1987 after years of hopelessness is astonishing.  Just now I'm recalling once again what an English professor at UC Irvine quoted in 1967 or 1968 (my first year of college), "Words do our thinking for us."  Is there something that exists without words?  All the light we cannot see?

We were talking
About the space between us all
And the people
Who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion
Never glimpse the truth
Then it's far too late when they pass away

We were talking
About the love we all could share
When we find it
To try our best to hold it there, with our love, with our love
We could save the world, if they only knew

Try to realize it's all within yourself, no-one else can make you change
And to see you're really only very small
And life flows on within you and without you

We were talking
About the love that's gone so cold
And the people
Who gain the world and lose their soul
They don't know, they can't see
Are you one of them?

When you've seen beyond yourself then you may find peace of mind is waiting there
And the time will come when you see we're all one
And life flows on within you and without you

(George Harrison)