The last line of John Denver’s song Rhymes & Reasons says “Come and stand beside us. We can find a better way.” It really makes me wonder how people can be so optimistic. It really isn’t fun being a pessimist. Finding, knowing, experiencing hope is a struggle that the pessimist seems always to lose no matter how hard we try.
This isn’t an apologetic for pessimism, but it should be noted that the pessimist isn’t just a negative person. I, for one, am just as likely to see the glass as half full and the joy of a new beginning as any optimist. I’m just as likely to get choked up by songs like Rhymes & Reasons as the optimist, maybe more so. I guess it is a philosophical, logical position that sees facts differently, or perhaps the pessimist isn’t as easily convinced that the behaviors that created and sustain those things which devastate our world can be changed in time. I know pessimists who would call us ‘realist’. There is that within me that wants to be proven that that isn’t true.
Perhaps some of us are mushy, optimists who just can’t justify their optimism. We lose the struggle for hope because of facts that are strong and irrefutable.
So you speak to me of sadness
And the coming of the winter
Fear that is within you now
It seems to never end
And the dreams that have escaped you
And the hope that you’ve forgotten
You tell me that you need me now
You want to be my friend
And you wonder where we’re going
Where’s the rhyme and where’s the reason
And it’s you cannot accept
It is here we must begin
To seek the wisdom of the children
And the graceful way of flowers in the wind
For the children and the flowers
Are my sisters and my brothers
Their laughter and their loveliness
Could clear a cloudy day
Like the music of the mountains
And the colours of the rainbow
They’re a promise of the future
And a blessing for today
Though the cities start to crumble
And the towers fall around us
The sun is slowly fading
And it’s colder than the sea
It is written from the desert
To the mountains they shall lead us
By the hand and by the heart
They will comfort you and me
In their innocence and trusting
They will teach us to be free
For the children and the flowers
Are my sisters and my brothers
Their laughter and their loveliness
Could clear a cloudy day
And the song that I am singing
Is a prayer to non believers
Come and stand beside us
We can find a better way
The wilderness is where I find peace. It is the source of that which allows me to continue my struggle for hope. It is only when I am forced to leave the wilderness and spend time in “civilization” that I lose hope. I do find my life and reality in the wilderness, but am I just hiding from reality? Is it wrong to hide from the reality that humanity is doing its best to destroy life on this wonder planet?
I guess hiding in the wilderness, where I feel truly alive and one with the universe, is where I can most successfully carry on my struggle for hope, knowing and seeing the reality that no matter what humans do, nature will survive and continue. The wilderness is that thread of hope to which I cling like a drowning man clings to a life line.
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