some thoughts about hopelessness

You are here. Why am I obsessed with this phrase? It's normally associated with a map, with relating ourselves to a particular location at one point in time, usually when we are trying to get to another destination ("here" is not where we want to be, but "there"). We are always on our way. We have never arrived. We will never arrive. We are hardly complacent with the present.

Would putting this phrase, "you are here", in places where people are en route (noplaces) force people to stop (or maybe just pause) and think about the particular place they are in at that moment, be conscious of it, be grateful for it? What if the sign were on the highway? Or on a long, windy country road? Would people recognize those interim moments as potential final destinations? That each moment could be a final destination. That we should live life in this manner.

How does one deal with hopelessness? Perhaps by realizing (believing) that it's a lie. Because the same thing that feels hopeless - the unending, unforgiving, unrelenting passage of time; our forward march towards the end of life - is the same exact thing that should bring us hope. Our hope could be renewed from one moment to the next by looking towards the tangible future. Not the unimaginable far away future, but the future that's only seconds away, that becomes the past before we even realize it's the present.