Beyond Hope

A friend of mine just sent me this piece by author and environmentalist Derrick Jensen, who happens to be speaking in Toronto tonight. Here’s a relevant excerpt:

More or less all of us yammer on more or less endlessly about hope. You wouldn’t believe—or maybe you would—how many magazine editors have asked me to write about the apocalypse, then enjoined me to leave readers with a sense of hope. But what, precisely, is hope? At a talk I gave last spring, someone asked me to define it. I turned the question back on the audience, and here’s the definition we all came up with: hope is a longing for a future condition over which you have no agency; it means you are essentially powerless.

I’m not, for example, going to say I hope I eat something tomorrow. I just will. I don’t hope I take another breath right now, nor that I finish writing this sentence. I just do them. On the other hand, I do hope that the next time I get on a plane, it doesn’t crash. To hope for some result means you have given up any agency concerning it. Many people say they hope the dominant culture stops destroying the world. By saying that, they’ve assumed that the destruction will continue, at least in the short term, and they’ve stepped away from their own ability to participate in stopping it.

I do not hope coho salmon survive. I will do whatever it takes to make sure the dominant culture doesn’t drive them extinct. If coho want to leave us because they don’t like how they’re being treated—and who could blame them?—I will say goodbye, and I will miss them, but if they do not want to leave, I will not allow civilization to kill them off.

When we realize the degree of agency we actually do have, we no longer have to “hope” at all. We simply do the work. We make sure salmon survive. We make sure prairie dogs survive. We make sure grizzlies survive. We do whatever it takes.

Not a bad point. Let’s get to work.

Campaign Office Opening: Photos

Thanks to Shaun and Everett for posting photos from our amazing campaign office opening party on Flickr and Facebook. I’ve copied some of my favourites below. (To round out the web two-point-oh-ness of it all, I’m told a third person will be posting a YouTube video tonight.) Last Tuesday we became only the second Toronto Centre campaign to open an office full time, providing further evidence that we are a very serious factor in this by-election.

Oh, and I should also thank Jim Harris for posting a delightful photo of my friend Matt looking very stunned. Matt’s wife and I have been teasing him all day. Says Matt (quoting Jackie Chiles), “this is the most public of my many humiliations.”

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Stuff We Need

Hi everyone, Jeff Brownridge here—Chris’ campaign generic viagra manager. You’ll hear from me every once and a while in the lead-up to March 17th.

First of all, the campaign is going extremely well so far. Our campaign office opening was packed and, as Jim Harris reports, we’re receiving a lot of support from people here in the riding.

Today, I’m specifically writing to ask for your help with some things we need for our campaign office at 538 Parliament. If you can loan us any of the below items please email me or call our office.

  • 4 2 cordless drills
  • 4 office chairs
  • 1 couch
  • 1 coffee maker
  • 2 computers
  • 2 monitors, preferably flat-screen
  • 1 3-line phone
  • Four 1 or 2 line phones
  • Printer(s) & ink/toner
  • Small table for coffee maker/literature
  • Cash box
  • Bulletin board
  • Large wall calendar
  • Accordion files
  • Staplers
  • Cookies (nut free)
  • Paper cutter
  • Toilet paper
  • A happy song for our office staff, preferably an original composition

Thanks!

Jeff