The Definition Of Hopeless

What is the definition of “hopeless”, anybody? I am sure a lot of people will think they know the meaning of that word. Maybe they do, but most probably they really don’t. And not just hopelessness; what about love, pain, joy, happiness, poverty, friendship? Most people think they understand these things, but in actual fact they are little more than words in the dictionary to them.

The truth of the matter is that you cannot truly know something, unless you have in fact experienced it in its best and worst ramifications. How can you claim to know the meaning of “hopeless”, when you have never been in such a position that the only thread holding your life together was a firm hope that things will definitely get better? How can you claim to understand friendship, when you have never been really alone in your life? And how on God’s good earth can you even begin to comprehend love, when you’ve never felt the excruciating pain of a broken heart, or the almost diabolic stirrings of intense hatred? Some people might think that this is taking it too far, but do stop a while and think about that well-known saying: It’s a thin line between love and hate. Believe me, if people knew how thin that line was, they wouldn’t screw around with relationships, throwing around the three most famous words in English language like it was worth less than tissue paper.

You know, it really piques me when I hear certain people carrying on about some five or ten easy steps to wealth. (I don’t know, but for some reason, these steps are always numbered, and they almost always come up to round figures – five, ten, fifteen, twenty). These people have not felt real poverty like I have; otherwise they wouldn’t be so damn flippant about it. They don’t understand how vicious the wicked circle of abject hopelessness-come-possessionlessness can be. (Hmmm, possessionlessness – is there such a word? I don’t know). Anyway, maybe I’m biased, but all those easy steps of theirs always ring hollow to me.

I don’t know how to say it, but there is this subtle perspective – this acute but inconspicuous clarity of vision that people who have passed through, and surmounted intense personal trials and hardship, develop. They become pretty hard to deceive. I have noticed this several times – in myself and in some other people. I suppose really experiencing something many other people rarely encounter can make you a bit eccentric. Take some of these fancy government programmes and initiatives; it doesn’t matter the amount of flamboyant words and flowered-up phrases used to couch them, I always spot the bugs right away. Granted, I’ve been wrong once or twice, but the truth is that I’m right more often than not. And the amazing thing is the high statistical regularity with which I am right. I guess the simply explanation is that it takes the tortured to say where it hurts most.

All this brings us back to my initial question: what is the definition of the word “hopeless”?  Frankly, if you have never been absolutely hopeless in your life, don’t even bother to answer the question.

hopeless means without hope, allowing no hope, inmpossibe to solve, deal with or teac, etc