“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words And never stops at all,” says Emily Dickinson about hope. There are a lot of speeches about what actually makes humans experience the world completely different than other living creatures. Is it the brains? Ability to feel the love? Physical features? Beliefs? Imagination? Or hope?
Many people believe that hope is the most living emotion a creature can feel. They say that if one becomes hopeless that’s when he actually dies. Without hope there’s no life left, they defend. Hope makes life more meaningful and even if things get bad but you still have a tiny bit of hope left, you’ll be okay again because you still haven’t lost the meaning of life which is your hope. Hope is also strongly connected with beliefs. A lot of religions are depended on the idea of bringing comfort and relaxation through the “God of hope”. However, there’s a point in which the belief systems don’t match with the power “hope” is trying to give to people. And that’s freedom.
Humans always had a need for belief. They always had a “god” they depended on to give them hope. When there was nothing in the whole world they made their god the sun. Then they found fire, they felt rain, they saw thunder strikes. They started having so many beliefs that they started to believe in many gods. It helped them survive. However, as the times went on these beliefs started to limit people. Yes, it made them more connected to their common grounds, preventing chaos but it also started preventing experiencing life. It became a mind trap. Prison of beliefs. Today many people experience internal wars because of the pressure religion has on them. I find this utterly wrong. I don’t believe that religion should make people scared or anxious. It should help them live. People should believe to live, not live to believe.
Times change. With time people’s behaviors and minds evolve. Nothing stays the same. In a common ground, belief systems should change too. But they don’t. That’s why they are becoming toxic. While everything evolves, beliefs should evolve with them. However, it keeps people from growing, from learning. It keeps them trapped instead of making them free and full of hope. People are too focused on the afterlife they forget that they are also alive right here and right now.
Belief is something completely beautiful as long as it doesn’t restrain human nature from evolving and growing like it does right now. We should learn to live with belief and try not to get lost in it.