• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Higher Thought Cannabis Game

  • Home
  • The Aim of Higher Thought
    • The Story of Our Game
    • Our Friendly Game
    • Q&A
    • Instructions for Play
  • Try the Game for Free!
  • What Players Say
  • Memes
  • Blog
  • Press
  • Contact
  • BUY THE GAME
    • Purchase now
    • Find the Game Near You
You are here: Home / Recent Thoughts / Hope for Today

September 19, 2019 By Marc Polonsky Leave a Comment

Hope for Today

Sometimes life feels meaningless to me in the face of climate change. How can any action I take, or any project I value, have any meaning in the face of the imminent destruction of human civilization we know it?

Loving the earth, Higher Thought Cannabis Game
Photo by Will Cornfield on Unsplash

Jonathan Franzen is a great American author. If there is an American future, he will be remembered the way people like Mark Twain and Edith Wharton and Herman Melville are remembered now—GIANTS of their time. Franzen’s human insights compel and amaze. Of course his novels are controversial, just as is this essay he recently published in the New Yorker. A lot of people don’t like it. They contest his logic; they find it presumptuously pessimistic. 

To my mind, it’s brimming with illumination and it’s a soul saver. 

Franzen’s point is that everything matters. Especially right now. 

If we can stave off one hurricane, that matters. Just a few extra years of relative stability is, as Franzen notes, a “goal worth pursuing.” But more than that, Franzen points out:

Any good thing you do now is arguably a hedge against the hotter future, but the really meaningful thing is that it’s good today. As long as you have something to love, you have something to hope for.” (emphasis mine)

As an example, Franzen points to:

 … an organization called the Homeless Garden Project. On a small working farm at the west end of town, it offers employment, training, support, and a sense of community to members of the city’s homeless population. It can’t ‘solve’ the problem of homelessness, but it’s been changing lives, one at a time, for nearly thirty years.…. There may come a time, sooner than any of us likes to think, when the systems of industrial agriculture and global trade break down and homeless people outnumber people with homes. At that point, traditional local farming and strong communities will no longer just be liberal buzzwords. Kindness to neighbors and respect for the land —nurturing healthy soil, wisely managing water, caring for pollinators—will be essential in a crisis and in whatever society survives it. A project like the Homeless Garden offers me the hope that the future, while undoubtedly worse than the present, might also, in some ways, be better. Most of all, though, it gives me hope for today.”

Reading that last sentence sparked a shift in my mindset. What does this mean? “Hope for today.” 

Simply that today matters. At least as much as tomorrow.

As long as you have something to love, you have something to hope for.

And maybe, in the long run, the habits of resilience are comprised as much of empathy and tenderness and tolerance as of muscle and expertise … 

We are living in a dark mystery. We simply don’t know what will be possible for humankind as the Earth inexorably reorders herself, but we know that everything matters, because the world is alive, as are we. Everything we do matters right now and perhaps for the future too. We don’t know if it matters for the future, but it might. 

Wow.

These are urgent times, and I think we must all strive to waken. No time for small thoughts. No time for the wormhole of melancholy. It’s a sharp blessing to be alive in this fragrant, pregnant moment. 

I don’t think we all have to be thinking about “making the world a better place” every second. But at the very least, what’s truly important right now? What really matters?

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: Recent Thoughts

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Most Popular Recent Thoughts

Recent Thoughts

  • ChatGPT and jokes
    Stumping ChatGPT with My Dream Joke
  • Darkness. My old friend?
    A Totally Creepy Thought that I Love for Some Reason
  • Playing Higher Thought the Cannabis Game with ChatGPT
    Why ChatGPT Can’t Play Higher Thought
  • ego reactivity
    Moments of Ego Reactivity
  • adventures of the heart
    The Heart Doesn’t Judge; It Just Says “Ouch!”
  • Pretend it's your dream
    Pretend It’s Your Dream
  • Art I don't like
    Art I Don’t Like
  • Burrito epiphany
    Epiphany at the Burrito Shop
  • Infinite Freedom
    Infinite Freedom
  • Miami Dolphins
    Goodbye to an Old Friend?
  • An understated new year
    An Understated New Year’s Moment
  • Fun is sacred - Higher Thought Cannabis Game
    Aphorisms from My Inner Guru
  • Infinite Time
    Infinite Time
  • The goddess laughs - Higher Thought Game
    People Make Plans and the Goddess Laughs
  • Citizenship
    Citizenship!
  • Things we learn in life
    What We’re Here to Learn
  • The Homeless Guy who wouldn't take no for an answer
    The Homeless Guy Who Wouldn’t Take No for an Answer
  • Nalu Kava: A Haven for Thoughtful People
  • hungry child
    They Were There But Now They’re Gone
  • Portland Adult Soapbox Derby, Tabor Park
    No Regrets

Footer

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • YouTube

Contact Higher Thought

Email Higher Thought

Telephone: (503) 345-5533

Privacy Policy

Copyright 2018–2021 Higher Thought Games™ LLC. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2023 · Altitude Pro On Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Higher Thought: The Cannabis Game

Get Higher Thought updates, tips, news, meet-ups and bargains!

Share higher thoughts, play the game live, get special discounts, and more!

Sign Me Up for the Kick-Ass Friday Newsflash!

Never see this message again.