Industrial Stringing-Along

I recently read a news item of the kind that gives sensitive people like you and me some hope. And the week before that I read at least two such items. And the week before that… – oh, when I think about it properly, I’ve been reading news for years now that keeps giving me a spark of hope.

A German idiom speaks of people clinging to a straw. A straw breaks quickly, but when no root and no strong branch are within reach, neither life ring nor solid rope, then man grasps the proverbial straw. What else is he to do?

And then the straw breaks.

A fortunate coincidence has it that just when one straw-of-hope breaks, the news holds out the next hope-straw to us. And then again, the next one. Every week anew, across years and soon decades. Are we being strung along?

It almost seems as if a professional industry were constantly holding out „straws“ to us. The straw-holding-out industry. We are strung along by being held out straws.

For example. Yes, the current government is destroying everything, but after the next election everything will get better! For sure! (Democracy as a „stringing-along machine“? A cynic might say: If elections really threatened to change something, one would ensure with propaganda and dirty parliamentary tricks that they don’t after all.)

I once wrote an extra-long essay about letting go. I called it „The Book About Letting Go by Dushan Wegner – Dushan Wegner.“ I celebrated letting go in it. It’s obvious enough: My attention, my strength, and my time on earth are painfully finite. If I want to grasp and hold on to what is truly important – no other path leads to happiness – then I should let go of what is not important. Let go of what is not important in the sense of survival-essential. Let go of what is not important in the sense of meaning-giving.

It might be a good resolution today to let go anew of the hope that things will get politically better.

If I were an evil fellow who hates humanity, who finances foundations and NGOs to increase the power of evil and make people unhappy, then I would simultaneously secretly always spread some hope. Hope is the opium of the voting people.

Yes, yes, I know: Some of you have invested much time, money, and emotion in the hope for change. Others perhaps even work themselves at an official post in the hope industry.

You will perhaps tell me: „Those who fight can lose; but those who don’t fight have already lost.“

I answer: „Those who fight on a hopeless position don’t only lose time and energy. Those who place their hope on the hopeless forfeit the chance to do what is truly important.“

No, they don’t want you to give up hope altogether. If you were to finally let go of hope in „politics,“ you might possibly dare the uprising, would have nothing to lose after all.

So they hold out straws of hope to you.

At the next talk show things will be fair. Next month politics will come to its senses.

And if not: The next chancellor will keep his promises, will close borders and end the debt-making – promised!

This time it’s true, and then everything will be fine again – just have some hope!