IVIV (2) Hope

[Doug Millison]

Mark, Tore,

With you I find those hopeful moments in Pynchon's books.  Maybe it's  
more a statement on my own spiritual condition that these days I tend  
to find it more difficult to hold on to those moments in Pynchon's  
fiction. I do find it inspiring that he, and other artists who have  
seen as deeply into the human condition, continue to make art and  
celebrate life and its hopeful moments in the process of creating and  
then engaging with the world through art.   That Pynchon into his 70s  
has managed not only to do this but also, it seems -- judging from the  
sound of his voice in the Inherent Vice book trailer video-- he's  
having fun with it, although who knows, maybe he's a suffering  
Beethoven rather than the glib Mozart when it comes to writing) that  
he keeps it up and has fun with it, I find inspiring.  I bet he  
publishes another book, too.

While I'll keep seeing and trying to hold on to the dim flickers of  
hope that Pynchon's literature affords, it's also true that Pynchon  
does a fine job of exposing the fundamental reasons it's so hard for  
us to hold on that hope, why it's difficult to turn it into something  
more meaningful by what we make of our lives.

Follow Pynchon back to McLuhan (we know from a letter in Pynchon's  
handwriting that he read and was engaged with McLuhan's thought) for  
an interesting argument that we humans have altered the basic way that  
we encounter the world through our senses, with the shift from  
manuscript to print -- bringing all manner of bad shit that stem from  
the desire for analysis and control --  to digital media. Corollary  
changes spread through society, before humans have any idea that  
they've changed themselves this way.

There's no way that any human being can take and KEEP an oath not to  
betray the children of this world, imho. All you have to do to prove  
this, is become a parent and have the great good fortune to raise a  
child to adulthood, as my wife and I have done with our son.  You can  
keep taking the pledge, over and over again, and you can keep trying  
to show love and give the child a reason to hope, and you can try to  
counter the dangerous forces that do move in this world (with and  
without specific human beings attached to them), and even in the  
unlikely event that I manage to avoid consciously betraying his hope  
in some way, and I can show him how to work and love, but I can't stop  
the world from crushing his hope, no more than my father was able to  
stop the world from having its way with me.  It's a bleak picture of  
human existence, in the end, although Pynchon does shine the light we  
find in these moments of hope, just as he seems to hold out the  
possibility that religious and magical traditions might bring us in  
contact somehow with another, finer existence where this hope is  
justified -- but there we move into the problematic territory of faith  
and belief.

Life is a gnarly wave for us humans to surf. Sometimes we go under and  
don't come back up.  But we've got to keep grabbing the board and  
getting back out there, keeping that gremmie hope alive!  Maybe  
Pynchon's message is really that simple? But I don't think so, not  
even in a lightweight beach novel.

"You didn't really believe you'd be saved. Come, we all know who we   
are by now. No one was ever going to take the trouble to save _you_,   
old fellow. . ."(GR 4)

I don't read this is an appeal to positive thinking and self-help, not  
even if I can derive the lesson from Pynchon's work as a whole, that  
these moments of hope and hard work to keep them coming are all we've  
got.  In WWII, the sentiment reflected here in GR's opening sequence  
was a harsh reality for millions of people who did perish because  
nobody came to their rescue when they needed rescuing. Can you trace  
that back to specific humans and their decisions? Yes, so what? Are  
those humans going to change their ways and stop their evil?

Knowing that doesn't remove the need for me to keep hope alive in my  
life in the ways that I know how to do.  I also know that me remaining  
hopeful and working hard,  is not going to stop George Bush from  
killing countless numbers of innocent people in Afghanistan and Iraq,  
or from torturing a bunch of people who seem to have only been keeping  
their hope alive and acting to make it real, and it's not going to  
stop the bankers from reaping their trillions this cycle while widows  
and orphans live in the streets, and it won't stop the insurance blood- 
money vampires from draining the rest of us dry.  My hoping and  
marching in protests, and writing letters to legislators, and voting  
for candidates who seem to share my hopes and dreams and show plans to  
do things differently, and keeping that up for years and decades,  
holding on to my hope, showing my love --  all that may not stop  
anything or influence anybody, but at least in the presence of  
dangerous forces that seem to want to make me stop, I can hope and  
show love, with family and friends, in the community where I live and  
work, etc, I can keep trying and not give up.  Makes me seem very  
brave when I see and live life that way.

-Doug