I watched the above this morning, and loved it, but by the end of it my chuckling was a little hollow. If George Carlin was right, and it is very tempting to believe he was, then there is no hope whatsoever of changing or influencing the status quo. In worldly terms, our predicament is hopeless. At best we are doomed to be, as John Prine once sang, ‘…happy sailors dancing on a sinking ship…’

This got me pondering the nature of hope. ’..Hope springs eternal…’Alexander Pope would have us believe. We never really get what we want, but we never stop expecting it. On a daily basis, we make fresh plans for a perfect life. Hope seems to be hot-wired into our psyches.

As a Christian, I believe hope to be a virtue. Nietsche, on the other hand, argues, ‘…it is the most evil of evils because it prolongs man’s torment.’

I certainly dont expect the world or its ‘owners’ to provide the impetus for things to improve. My hope each day is that I will know God a little better, respond to my fellow creatures with more compassion, do what I do with humility and fortitude, and provide for my immediate family.

Is this self centred twaddle? I dont think so. I believe there are plenty of us round the world similarly inclined. Enough in fact to indeed make the world a better place, or at least those parts of the world we inhabit. And in so doing we render our worthless proprietors impotent.

So thank you, George Carlin, for illuminating some truth, for making me laugh, and for being a living example of the parts the ‘greedy bastards’ can never touch.

Originating post: hope