No hope

Remember the rainbow souls from the last chapter? Here’s what happens after they land.

The fur is the worries. Concern after concern grows onto the freshly born soul, layer by layer, until the whole weight of the world sits on its shoulders. Somewhere under there, the true colors are still glowing.

And the heaviest strand of fur is hope. Hope is how life gets postponed. Waiting until there’s more time, more money, more freedom — you miss what’s already here, and who you already are.

The Weirdo “NO HOPE” Diagram, by R. Crumb. Scanned from Weirdo #3, Fall 1981, Last Gasp Eco-Funnies

R. Crumb drew the world as it appears — absurd, chaotic, going nowhere. No hope. And he’s not wrong about the picture. We appear in this world for a split second to never experience it again. Few rotations around the sun — poof, gone.

But here’s the twist: joy is what you are born with. The fish at the bottom of the ocean doesn’t seem bothered. The absurdity is real. The suffering is optional.

Suffering isn’t mandatory. Joy is a choice — the choice to be free of your reactions. And the choice takes work.

Every confession promises rescue later — heaven, a cleaner world after this one. To me they are shards of one broken whole, each holding a piece of truth. Assemble the puzzle and the answer comes out short. Nobody is coming.

That’s the good news. We were let in here for a walk, and this is the best of all worlds — the only one there is. Nothing left to do on Earth: live, and help others live.

When the waiting stops, the day opens on its own. I once sat in an apartment with the power out, in Thailand, having a great time — nothing can go wrong. Where hope used to live, light moves in.