A couple of nights ago I was watching a cartoon on Netflix called The Midnight Gospel. The Midnight Gospel is an animated podcast, the interviews are based on real conversations with people from all spiritual backgrounds. The particular episode I watched was called “Annihilation of Joy”; where Duncan Trussell interviews Jason Louv. Jason Louv is an artist who writes about the outer fringes of human consciousness. During this episode, the discussion of certain Hindu and Buddhist perspectives reminded me of something I’ve been seeing in the people around me (including myself) all quarantine: The Exploration of Acceptance vs. Hope.

Jason discusses a Hindu theory called Indra’s Net, a theory that all consciousnesses are connected like every little intersection of the net. Amplifying that every little person is a ball of energy. Jason goes on to say, “We think we exist and so we suffer... we think there’s something essentially true about reality.” This is different from Nihilism which is the belief that nothing matters. Jason describes this belief as, “Everything is empty or inherent of quality.” What really helped me understand this was him saying, “Understanding the essential nonexistence of everything.” Reminding me of this nine-month long quarantine (dang that’s long) when Jason talked about 2,500 years ago when people would meditate to wake up. According to Jason Louv, “Buddhist meditation is not trying to get anywhere. You're just sitting with yourself. You're just sitting with the feeling. The feeling that you try to get away from all damn day long.” It felt like these last 9 months have been one giant pause in life. We were all kinda forced to sit with ourselves. Jason acknowledges that being alive is painful…And it is. That’s kinda morbid, isn’t it? Well, quarantine has felt like a long nine months of sitting with feelings that we usually have the freedom to distract ourselves from. Supposedly there’s something that happens with that mucky feeling, after a while the feeling changes and you just “wake up”. 

An analogy that really struck me while watching The Midnight Gospel was Duncan and Jason comparing life to a simulation. After meditating and sitting with your feelings you eventually wake up, or in this case, see that the world is a simulation. I’m not going to delve all the way into the things I learned about the Buddhism practice in this essay because it’s pretty morbid but it was very interesting to me. To put it simply from the Buddhist perspective, living while trying to further yourself into spiritual practices is like trying to go deeper into a simulation (Jason compares this to someone playing a video game for an extremely long time). This made complete sense to me. People often talk about how life is a joke and doesn’t really make sense on paper. It’s why shows like The Good Place work. The Good Place is a show about four humans who weren’t really bad on earth but they certainly weren’t good. These four people go to hell but by the end of the series, they change the way people were judged altogether because it makes no sense. Jason describes people pushing deeper into the ‘simulation’ as “wanting to recreate what already happened.” It hurts to have a body and this quarantine forces you to sit with it. Over these last nine months, I see many people struggling to sit with these dark feelings and force themselves to hope for things to return to the way they were before the quarantine. These past nine months I think we have all been riding on hope alone, this brought me to the realization that hope sucks. 

Realizing this made me think about acceptance - accepting that you are in a situation without actively wishing or desiring change. Not to say that while you’re accepting your situation things can't change.  “If you haven’t really explored how much you’ve been using hope as a flaw” was the most surprising thing I heard while watching that entire episode. Mostly because while I was growing up hope was taught the same way learning to tie your shoes was. It was usually the moral in stories, “Just make sure you never ever lose hope.” A couple of months ago Wide Angle Youth Media allowed me to create a project about anything I wanted. Similar to now, I created a project about hope (see video below). However, in the short film, Maria lives in a society where hope is a drug, and when she is forced off the drug she can’t handle life and eventually dies by suicide. I created that film because I realized how much I was riding on the hope to live. However, back then I thought hope was a good thing, something saving me from what could possibly be the worst time during the quarantine. But it wasn’t, during that time hope was nothing but a slow burn.

Psychology Today describes hope as a feeling that won’t let go of you. “I hate the word hope, it’s such a cruel and bitter word.” That quote from Leon F. Seltzer reminded me of my thoughts about acceptance and the Buddhist perspective. It leaves a slightly sour taste in my mouth, trying to go against my natural desire to change my own situations but instead to just live in them. It almost feels forbidden because it’s so against the way I was taught to think. Quarantine burns a little. Like I said earlier, it forces everyone to sit with unbearable feelings but I think hope only adds gasoline to the fire. I say this because hope is more of a desire and it causes inaction. Accepting a position and living in it forces you to make decisions. Whilst having nagging hope at your side in your situation takes a more passive route in almost waiting for things to get better. I've seen so much action and inaction this past quarantine. Most of us were just in our house, but some protested. Some wanted things to change and did something about it. And it wasn't comfortable, all of the brutal Black injustice that has been rightfully called to attention, but also all of the hard to watch content on social media was not easy to digest. Sometimes videos of Black men being hurt were used to gain shock value. Even so, during the pandemic I found hope to be almost agonizing for me.

In my personal experience, hope drop-kicked me on the ground, punched me, flipped me over and then gave me a wet willy. I know it sounds like a downer but the strong desire to wish things can be different was frustrating. And for me this was many things, wishing more jobs were available during quarantine, wishing family members did not have covid, wishing school would get a little easier. But this strong want and nothing coming out of it felt like stepping in dog poo. And so when I watched The Midnight Gospel and I saw that people find true peace in accepting their situation - not condemning it, but accepting it. I felt like I saw a missing puzzle piece in a lot of lives. Most of the time at school or work conversation always opens with, “Let's hope this covid is over soon.” That statement subconsciously gets heavier and heavier the more time that goes by. I believe hope has knocked everyone down without even trying. I was talking to my friend and she told me she feels off...different. A dirty current of water in her head that she can’t really shake. It's because this quarantine forced almost everyone to ride on hope alone, and that's horrible.

The idea of Nihilism and even Buddhist practices scare me, however, I know some people find true peace in their own lives. Despite this or anyone’s personal beliefs, I think the way we use hope during this pandemic is important. After watching The Midnight Gospel I realized I’ve been using hope in a painful way, I think most of us are. When I was offered the opportunity to create this project I had no idea what to write about. I finally settled on discussing my exploration of Acceptance and Hope because everyone should be able to consciously choose if they want to use hope to cope. Sadly things can't go back to the way they were, I know that’s something we all hope for. But we can change the way we do things now.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alicia Thomas is a student at Baltimore City College. She is a student at WAYM, and continues her journey as a multifaceted artist in the program.