Cristina Campo On The Key Difference Between Hope And Hope – The Marginalian

“What are we, anyway, at our best, but a small, lingering collection in the great work of man – forever turning, directed, possible,” wrote Adrienne Rich in her classic book. The Art of the Possible while the field of factuals emerged from theoretical physics as the science of probability.

Everything that can happen is in some way real, because behind every “what if” there is an “if/then” of causation tied back to the first thing that ever happened—the beginning of this universe and its particular set of permissions—and it goes forward to what has not yet happened but is happening in the very universe. Hope is the real power. But it takes trust in the power to release it.

Next to physics and poetry, fiction may be our best tool for seeing axioms in reality and building from them models that measure probability. (“If you want your children to be smart, read fairy tales,” Einstein reportedly told one mother who wanted her son to be a scientist. “If you want them to be smarter, read more fairy tales.”)

In his account of revelations in the way that legends reveal themselves to us, which is found in his collection of stories after death. Unforgivable (public library), Italian writer Cristina Campo (April 29, 1923–January 10, 1977) explores the relationship between hope and trust, and the dangers of confusing it, in our search for the possible. You write:

The impossible awaits the legendary hero. But how can one achieve the impossible if not, precisely, using impossible things?

[…]

A fictional hero… must forget all* his limitations when competing against the impossible and always pay attention to these limitations when doing the impossible.

The great attraction of the myth and its greatest benefit, Campo says, is “the overcoming of the law of necessity, the constant evolution into a new system of relations” – that is, a new system of organization that is not deterministic but possible. “I said to my soul,” wrote TS Eliot, “be still and wait without hope, for hope will be the hope of the wrong.” Speaking to the soul of a man who wishes to be a hero of his destiny – that is, to refuse to fall victim to the myth of the impossible – Campo writes:

Whose fate befalls fairy tales? One who hopelessly trusts in that which is hopeless. Hope and trust should not be confused. They are different things, as the expectation of wealth here on earth is different from the second virtue of religion. The one who repeats blindly, forcefully saying “let's trust” does not trust; He really hopes to get lucky in the temporary game governed by the law of necessity. Those who trust, on the other hand, do not trust in certain events, because they are sure that there is an economy that includes all events and that exceeds its meaning in the way that a metaphorical carpet, surpasses the flowers and animals that compose it.

The great irony of real life – this social contract so trampled on by consent that it doesn't see the possibility – is that those who see the tapestry are often seen as mad. (This, of course, has always been the case – take Kepler, take Blake, take Dickinson.) An era after GK Chesterton thought about how to stay sane in a mad world and gave his insightful tribute to life as a poem, novel, or fable, Campo writes:

In the myth, the winner is the backward-thinking madman, who pulls back the masks, who sees the secret thread in the garment, the mysterious play of echoes in the music; one who moves with delightful precision in the labyrinth of formulas, numbers, antiphons, and traditions common to the Gospels, legends, and poems. He believes, like a saint, that a man can walk on water, that a fiery spirit can jump over walls. He believes, like a poet, in the name, where he can combine visible miracles.

Couples with Nobel-winning Polish poet Wisława Szymborska on myth and the need for fear, then revisits John Steinbeck on the true meaning and purpose of hope and JRR Tolkien on myth and the psychology of myth.