I was reading Bruce Sterling’s The Zenith Angle and at the very end came upon this quote that totally blew me away:

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. [wikiquote]

This quote came from a book titled Disturbing the Peace written by the last President of Czechoslovakia Vaclav Havel. The quote comes specifically from the chapter “The Politics of Hope”.

At first I struggled with what the quote was saying exactly. I grasped the first part about what hope was not, but where it said “the certainty that something makes sense”, I would try to substitute “the certainty that what I am doing is right”. This was definitely my own mind twisting the quote to meet my own personal assertions. After I realized and acknowledged my mistake, Havel’s intended meaning began to settle in my mind.

It is rather comforting to me that hope is based on rationality, since I am all about things making sense. The flip side that hope is not optimism is equally true and reassuring. Hope is not limited to the outcome but based on the certainty of reason.

While thinking about hope, I remembered a verse in the Bible at the beginning of “The Faith Chapter”:

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. [Hebrews 11:1]

This verse makes the connection between faith and hope. At first it seems kind of circular in its certainty. But I guess this brings up the ultimate question as to what exactly am I placing my hope in. If hope is “the certainty that somethings makes sense”, then that something better be something that is going to last and that is worth living and dying for.

I am going to have to read Havel’s book to find out more of what he meant.