This week, Nick Cave dropped in on Stephen Colbert’s chat show to talk about a lot of things - but his response to a fan letter caused a buzz, in which he replied to someone sharing their struggles to stay hopeful in the face of cynicism, asking Cave: “Do you still believe in us human beings?”
Cave’s response quickly went viral on social media, and it’s not hard to see why:
“Much of my early life was spent holding the world and the people in it in contempt. It was a position both seductive and indulgent. The truth is, I was young and had no idea what was coming down the line. It took a devastation to teach me the preciousness of life and the essential goodness of people. It took a devastation to reveal the precariousness of the world, of its very soul, and to understand that the world was crying out for help. It took a devastation to understand the idea of mortal value, and it took a devastation to find hope.
Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard-earned, makes demands upon us, and can often feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on Earth. Hopefulness is not a neutral position — it is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism.
Each redemptive or loving act, as small as you like — such as reading to your little boy, showing him something you love, singing him a song, or putting on his shoes — keeps the devil down in the hole.
It says the world and its inhabitants have value, and are worth defending.
It says the world is worth believing in.
In time, we come to find that this is so.”
I love this reframing of hope, because - like curiosity - it’s sometimes assumed to be a passive thing you have very little to no control over. If you’re hopeless, oh well, nothing to be done. But Cave believes hope is active - a faith in some aspect of the world that you can put to good use, even in the tiniest of ways, a lever to help bend reality in the right direction, for yourself and for others.
And in Rebecca Solnit’s words,
“Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency…. Hope is a gift you don't have to surrender, a power you don't have to throw away.”
What are you choosing to be hopeful about right now?
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(Update: my mortal Substack enemy wrote this about Cave, and I hate hate hate to say it but it's really good:
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