A wise man once wrote, "Hope is a strange thing. It exists only to disappoint, for once it's fulfilled, it vanishes."

I'm not exactly sure what that (clearly drunk) wise man was getting at, but I have a theory.

The thing about hope, I think, is that there's only one way to completely destroy it. And that's to fulfill it. Anything else, anything less, and it's going to survive.

Disappointments will devastate, but a spark of hope will survive, and then grow. Setbacks will shatter, but a tiny glimmer of hope will survive, and then grow. Failure will, um, do something bad that starts with "f" but hope will still survive, and then grow.

Frustrate, perhaps?

Anyway, NakedGirl told me tonight that, "There's nothing wrong with a little hope."

I tend to agree with her. Good thing, too. Because, even after everything I've seen and heard and felt, I still have hope. And, more than that, I like having hope, misguided as it may be.

It's at least something.

I tried living with nothing, and it sucked. Big ones.

I cannot imagine going back to a life without hope. If such an existence could even be called life. But I suppose that I'd give it a shot, if I had to.

If all my hopes were fulfilled, and they all vanished, I guess I could try to live with that.