Despair means to lose all hope.
I disinvite all despair from my social fields.
We are not playing that game here.
This newsletter has a vibe, and that vibe is hope. It's about hope-pilling, embodying new imaginaries without being confined to a rationalist paradigm. Doom pilling is being convinced with “bounded rationality” that the world is doomed. Boring. Being boring is not the vibe. The internet is boring. We want something new. We are ready to step outside the fear-coated perspectives haunting our screens.
We are “too crazy” to stop believing in a beautiful world. Of course, we will be deemed fools, but that is the price of bravery, and besides, foolishness is what gives wisdom a chance. Hence, from this moment onward, we embrace the wisdom of St. John Chrysostom: “People who are really brave are those who never despair.”
Hope used to be seen as lame and cringeworthy, understandably so because hoping in ignorance is foolish. However, that isn't really hope; it’s toxic positivity. The doomers were once the cool ones because they courageously considered the possibilities of doom when nobody wanted to, openly rocking their corresponding depression when the majority was pretending everything was okay.
Things are flipping now: those insisting on doom are not only NGMI, but they are now the ones considered lame and cringe. Now that doom awareness and depression are mainstream, it's time to remind everyone how timelessly stylish hope really is. Hope, in the deepest sense, transcends the bounds of rationality and acts as an existential reset button, fostering a new philosophy that brings about a new world.
This is serendipity. Today I was thinking that my problem is that I feel hopeless, in despair actually. I will not explain why, it's personal and I don't agree completely with your premise, but your post it's almost like an answer to my thoughts, as if you heard me and are answering me through the distance. So thanks.
I would say that hope and despair are two sides of the same coin - hope: having in mind a particular sort of future you want or don't want; despair: when things turn out counter to what's been hoped. What's in common is the grasping at something other than "what is". I suppose there's a fine line between hope, wishing, etc versus moving in the direction of something imaginal.
The middle way is equanimity.