Hope


Zelda: Are you hopeful?

Zach: Are you serious?

Zelda: Yeah. And I want to be hopeful. 


Zach: Be my guest: Hope in one hand, shit in the other. See which one fills up first.


Zelda: Funny. But not fair.


Zach: Hope is just another belief system. And you know how I feel about those.


Zelda: You could be hopeful without having a belief system.


Zach: Isn’t that just positive thinking?


Zelda: Hope is so much more than that. 


Zach: You’re going deep.


Zelda: You want deep? I'll give you deep: Remember Dante’s Inferno? The Gate of Hell has this inscribed above it, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”


Zach: Is that where we’re at? The Gate of Hell?


Zelda: Not if we still have hope.


Zach: Enlighten me.


Zelda: If you’re hopeless, you’re helpless. You’re powerless. There’s nothing you can do. But if you have hope, you have something. You have agency. You believe you can take action to improve things.


Zach: There you go, believing again. Do you really think it’s possible to improve my situation?


Zelda: Yes, I do. Because I’m hopeful. 


Zach: You’re hopeful they’ll find a cure for stage 4 cancer?


Zelda: Why not. A bazillion researchers are working on it right now. And they discover new treatments all the time. 


Zach: Time...I used to think I had all the time in the world. Now it feels like time is running out.


Zelda: I hope not.


Zach:  I see what you did there.


Zelda: Hope makes us plant a garden in spring, even if we’re not sure we’ll make it to harvest. Hope makes parents start a college fund while their kid is still in diapers. And hope drives researchers to run one more test, launch one more study, and get one step closer to a cure.


Zach: By that definition, sure. I'm fucking hopeful as hell.

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