“The German word Angst (Middle High German angest; Old High German angust) originally meant ‘narrowness.’ Angst suffocates any feeling of vastness, of perspective, by narrowing down and blocking our view. Someone who is fearful feels cornered. Fear is accompanied by a feeling of being caught and imprisoned. When we are fearful, the world seems to be a prison. All the doors that lead out into the open are locked. Fear blocks off the future by closing our access to what is possible, what is new.
“Only in the deepest despair does true hope arise. The deeper the despair, the more intense the hope. It is no accident that Elpis (the Greek goddess of hope) is represented as the child of Nyx, the goddess of the night. Among the siblings of Nyx are not just Tartarus and Erebus (darkness) but also Eros. Elpis and Eros are related. Hope is a dialectical figure. The negativity of despair is constitutive for hope. Saint Paul also emphasizes the negativity inherent in hope: ‘We glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience hope: And hope maketh not ashamed.’
“Despair and hope relate to each other like valley and mountain. The negativity of despair is inscribed in hope. Nietzsche spells out their dialectical relationship as follows:
Hope is the rainbow over the cascading torrent of life, swallowed up a hundred times by the foam and forming ever anew, crossing the torrent with tender and graceful audacity where its roar is the wildest and most dangerous.
“There could be no better description of hope. It possesses a ‘tender and graceful audacity.’ Those who act with hope act audaciously and are not distracted by the rapidity and toughness of life. There is, however, also something contemplative about hope. It leans forward and listens attentively. The receptivity of hope makes it tender, lends it beauty and grace.
“Hopeful thinking is not optimistic thinking. Unlike hope, optimism lacks negativity. It knows neither doubt nor despair. Its essence is sheer positivity. Optimism is convinced that things will take a turn for the good. For optimists, the nature of time is closure. They do not know the future as an open space of possibility. Nothing occurs. Nothing surprises. The future appears available. The real future, however, is characterized by unavailability. Optimists never look into an unavailable distance. They do not reckon with the unexpected or incalculable.
“Optimism does not lack anything. It is not on its way. But hope is a searching movement. It is an attempt to find a firm footing and a sense of direction. By going beyond the events of the past, beyond what already exists, it also enters into the unknown, goes down untrodden paths, and ventures into the open, into what-is-not-yet. It is headed for what is still unborn. It sets off towards the new, the altogether other, the unprecedented.
“Optimism requires no effort. It is something given, taken for granted, like someone’s height or other unaltering characteristics. As an optimist, writes Terry Eagleton, ‘you are chained to your cheerfulness like a slave to his oar, a glum enough prospect.’ An optimist does not need to provide reasons for adopting his attitude. The existence of hope, by contrast, cannot simply be taken for granted. It awakens. Frequently, it must be called upon, appealed to. Unlike optimism, which lacks all determination, active hope is characterized by commitment. An optimist does not properly act. Action is always associated with risk, and an optimist does not take risks.
“There is no fundamental difference between optimism and pessimism. One mirrors the other. For the pessimist, time is also closed. Pessimists are locked in ‘time as a prison,’ as Gabriel Marcel said. Pessimists simply reject everything, without striving for renewal or being open towards possible worlds. They are just as stubborn as optimists. Optimists and pessimists are both blind to the possible. They cannot conceive of an event that would constitute a surprising twist to the way things are going. They lack imagination of the new and passion for the unprecedented. Those who hope put their trust in possibilities that point beyond the ‘badly existing,’ in Ernst Bloch’s phrase. Hope enables us to break out of closed time as a prison.”
— from Byung-Chul Han, “A Searching Movement,” in The Lamp (Issue 26, Christmas 2024)