The Matrix’s character, The Architect once said “HOPE is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of our greatest strength, and our greatest weakness.”
Powerful and very true words, right? 😊
Now, let us do something thinking around this. Take for instance humanity’s greatest single source of hope: Religion.
Imagine if we thought the very outcomes of all our decisions, struggles, futures, solely rested on our own efforts. And that in the event of a failure or success we cannot look up for a divine intervention or praise.
A scary, bleak and unthinkable reality for most!
Who shall “take the wheel“? Who shall promise “the light at the end of the tunnel?” Who shall comfort us when all mortal efforts have failed or have forsaken us? For what reason shall we do good when the promise of heaven is no more or refrain from bad when the scare of hell is absent.
Maybe, just maybe we knew this grim piece of existence. So thousands of years ago, visionaries created humanity’s greatest invention – an unfailing, perpetually and unconditionally loving Supreme Being.
Everlasting HOPE at last. They had to be clever too, and slyly obscure this new invention in mystery, else he’d be discovered. One religion attempts to do this through verses such as this.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.”Isaiah 55:8-9
Ingenious! If you ask me.
But, will this HOPE be our greatest strength or greatest weakness?
Will we rise to the apex of personal and collective glory and potential within the safety net of this hope? Are we unconsciously relegating some obligation to this hope?
I’m guessing the answers lie in practical manifestations we see in our lives as people.
Do we see a keener sense of drive and motivation for growth and achievement when we ease ourselves from the over-reliance on the abstractions of this hope; when we hold ourselves absolutely responsible for all our outcomes; when our good actions isn’t motivated by prospects of being in divine good books or escaping eternal damnation.
I say we do. I say we become better versions of ourselves when take full responsibility. Great power is only bestowed upon those willing to accept great responsibility, a quote Stan Lee’s Spider Man fans are most familiar with.
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