I was watching The X Files (I bought all 9 seasons some time ago) last night. In particular I was watching this episode entitled Colony and End Game (season 2) where Mulder finds his sister back, only to realize she’s a clone and she’s not his real sister. His relentless pursuit for the truth lands him in the artic continent where he almost loses his life. I was quite taken up by his response when Scully asks him whether he did find what he was looking for up north.
Mulder : No, I didn’t find it, but instead I found something else – the hope to keep on looking
I gotta admit, I felt a twingling sensation inside me when I heard that response. As the credits were rolling, my mind went back to his statement. Somehow I feel I can resonate with Mulder. There have been many times too that I too have clung on to something so much that I didn’t want to give it away. Like Mulder, I too want to believe in those quests I believe in.
The question one might ask : Is Mulder cookoo? Or is he is just purely obsessed with something that can he knows is just not true? Or is he just in denial? Often times in my own life, I too have been in this position. I have been relentless in some of my pursuits, never willing to give up on something that is on my mind, whether it’s in my work or searching for something or pursuing my relationships. Sometimes I wonder whether I am obsessed or whether I am just living in denial.
But like Mulder, I guess I share with him that same level of hope, that optimisim that somehow I will find the answers that I am looking for in this life. Perhaps it’s just my nature. My parish priest observed that I am an optimistic person, that I am able to look at the good in a world filled with cynicism.
This gift that I have perhaps can help answer the question I raised above. Whether or not Mulder is cookoo is irrelevant – because for people like him and me, hope is what keep us going, and in the words of Sayid Jarrah of the tv show Lost, “Hope is a dangerous thing to lose”….
At the end of the day, it is hope, that keeps us going and believing…
Hope is both the earliest and the most indispensable virtue inherent in the state of being alive. If life is to be sustained hope must remain, even where confidence is wounded, trust impaired.
-Erik H. Erikson-
hope is what makes life worth living. life without hope progresses from a slackening of the spring in one’s step to a slow, tortuous and painful death of the spirit. and the body weakens in consequence.
and then it is only a few steps away from physical death.
gruesome, but no less real. that’s why i believe that it is by hope we are saved. it is by entering fully into the possibility that tomorrow will be better and that we can and will do what is within our power to make it better that we move forward. we stop ourselves from falling into that abyss.
and hope can be shared, it can grow, it can illuminate.