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hopes up (what else could be)
Episode 2617th August 2022 • PowerPivot • Leela Sinha
00:00:00 00:07:09

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Leela Sinha:

Here's what I want. I want all of us to get our

Leela Sinha:

hopes up. I want us to get our hopes up so high and clear. I

Leela Sinha:

want us to get our hopes up to the place where we can barely

Leela Sinha:

reach them with our fingertips. I want to get our hopes up. I

Leela Sinha:

personally want to get our hopes up starting with mine. I'm tired

Leela Sinha:

of keeping my expectations low. I'm tired of hoping that I

Leela Sinha:

didn't hope for too much. I'm tired of trying to avoid the

Leela Sinha:

plane crash before it takes off. I'm tired of staying on the

Leela Sinha:

ground. I'm tired. I'm tired of all of this. And I want us to

Leela Sinha:

get our hopes up so high. So high, we float above the trees

Leela Sinha:

and the mountain tops so that we can see how everything how

Leela Sinha:

everything how everything is connected. Like in the Sword in

Leela Sinha:

the Stone when he goes flying. And there are no borders from up

Leela Sinha:

there. It's not entirely true that there are no borders. When

Leela Sinha:

I was 19 and I flew to France to study abroad, I looked down from

Leela Sinha:

the plane window as we took off from New York. And I saw my

Leela Sinha:

familiar landscape, the woods of New England, but they were

Leela Sinha:

criss-crossed with something I had never noticed before. In all

Leela Sinha:

of the flying I had done, I had never seen New England quite

Leela Sinha:

like this before. It was criss-crossed with these little

Leela Sinha:

black lines, these little black lines everywhere, everywhere

Leela Sinha:

coming and going. Irregular, unpredictable, broken. And I

Leela Sinha:

realized after a while, those lines, those lines are the stone

Leela Sinha:

walls, those the stone walls that I took for granted until I

Leela Sinha:

moved out of New England and discovered that not every place

Leela Sinha:

is made 50% rocks and 50% dirt. But as it turns out, those rock

Leela Sinha:

walls tell us the story of a piece of the history of that

Leela Sinha:

land. Just a piece. But those borders are ones that are easily

Leela Sinha:

crossed. And when you meet with your neighbor to walk the stone

Leela Sinha:

wall and put the stones back in place, it's not to keep you

Leela Sinha:

apart. Boundaries are not the worst thing in the world as it

Leela Sinha:

turns out. And getting our hopes up is a kind of open-ness to

Leela Sinha:

boundaried-ness that will allow us to move forward. Having your

Leela Sinha:

hopes up is sometimes about believing in people's abilities

Leela Sinha:

to do better, to do good, to meet the world where it needs to

Leela Sinha:

be met. And that's what these walls are. That's what these

Leela Sinha:

boundaries are. That's what these hopes are: these hopes

Leela Sinha:

that you will not encounter too much terribleness in front of

Leela Sinha:

you when you walk out the front door with your coffee. That

Leela Sinha:

there will be enough space for you to believe in the goodness

Leela Sinha:

of the world just one more day just once more, perhaps? Maybe

Leela Sinha:

twice. Let's find out. Let's keep walking. Let's keep moving.

Leela Sinha:

Let's keep opening doors. Let's keep rolling forward. Let's keep

Leela Sinha:

going and keep going and keep going. Let's not have to stop

Leela Sinha:

because the barriers are too high. Let's make sure that those

Leela Sinha:

stairs also have a ramp. Let's make sure that everybody can get

Leela Sinha:

through that door. I had an experience recently where

Leela Sinha:

someone I love was supposed to have something they wanted very

Leela Sinha:

much. And at the last minute, it didn't happen. It's still gonna

Leela Sinha:

happen. But it's going to be a minute or two or six months

Leela Sinha:

worth of minutes. And while they wait, they have to manage the

Leela Sinha:

possibility that they wanted it too much, which is not really a

Leela Sinha:

possibility. But we learn over time when we don't get and don't

Leela Sinha:

get and don't get and our needs get sidestepped and moved aside

Leela Sinha:

and pressed down and squashed and rolled over, that maybe our

Leela Sinha:

needs don't matter; that maybe hoping for something, wanting it

Leela Sinha:

deeply is the wrong way to go.

Leela Sinha:

And there is a funny thing that happens. If you're desperate for

Leela Sinha:

something, it's very tricky to find your way out of that

Leela Sinha:

desperation. And almost always it is when you find your way out

Leela Sinha:

of that desperation that you are then able to get the thing that

Leela Sinha:

you needed or wanted. Even if it feels like it's outside of your

Leela Sinha:

control. It's this weird... I don't know. I don't have words

Leela Sinha:

for it. But I do know that I'm trying to simultaneously hold

Leela Sinha:

the possibility of hope, and walk and move and roll and fly

Leela Sinha:

and dream toward hope. But not just hope, because hope is, is

Leela Sinha:

empty satisfaction; also toward action. Also, toward action.

Leela Sinha:

Toward believing. Believing, not only in the possibility of

Leela Sinha:

action, but the reality of action. Believing that even if

Leela Sinha:

it doesn't come today it might come tomorrow. Believing that

Leela Sinha:

these words, these ideas, this podcast, this place, will reach

Leela Sinha:

out into the world and somehow tip over some domino, hit some

Leela Sinha:

butterfly's wing, make some breeze somewhere that will

Leela Sinha:

circle back and transform something. Something.

Leela Sinha:

Something's gotta change, and we are the ones who have to change

Leela Sinha:

it. And that can feel so overwhelming until we remember

Leela Sinha:

that change starts at home, change starts right here, in my

Leela Sinha:

two hands, in my throat, in my mouth, on my tongue, in my

Leela Sinha:

dreams. Where I get my hopes up by imagining what else could be.

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