Living With The Paradox of Sadness and Hope

" I don't want you to feel hope.  I want you to feel the fear that I feel."
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Han, is a Korean word that has no ready translation in English.  The best description I’ve seen comes from the TV series The West Wing, where U.S. President Bartlet (played by Martin Sheen) explains that Han is " a state of mind. Of soul, really. A sadness. A sadness so deep no tears will come. And yet still there's hope."

Han describes a soul that somehow finds a way to live with the paradox of sadness and hope.  It is perversely comforting to know there is a word for how I’ve been feeling: a deep sadness about our planet that is under duress and about our children – a whole generation now - growing up with the sense that they could be killed at school at any moment by an unstable person with a gun.

A recent and compelling petition from a young girl pleading for action on climate change expresses the concept of Han far better than anything I can say.  Greta, a 16 year old environmental activists from Switzerland, told the World Economic Summit that " I don't want you to feel hope. I want you to feel the fear that I feel.  I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is.” 

If you do nothing else today, please watch this compelling one minute video of Greta imploring us all to action.

The evidence on Climate Change is undeniable, and yet we allow the deniers to dominate the agenda.  If there is any doubt about how serious this has become, just start clicking on some of the topics in this NASA website to gain a better understanding of the plight all humanity faces: global temperature increasing, warming oceans, sea level rising, extreme environmental events, or ocean acidification.  Plenty here for a brooding sense of sadness.  Thank God for the Gretas of the world to offer a smidgeon of hope for change in the face of impending global disaster. 

We have the same dynamic on gun control.  In just a few weeks it will be Valentine’s day.  This year, Valentine’s day takes on a more ominous tone, as it will mark the one year anniversary of the Parkland Florida mass shooting at the Stoneman Douglas High School where 14 students and 3 adults were killed. 

Since 1982, using the most conservative definition, there have been 108 mass shootings in the United States.  We should all be unsettled by the fact that the frequency of mass shootings has tripled in recent years, but we seem to have become numb to them.  Point in fact, there was an execution style slaying of five women recently in a Florida bank, but it barely made the national news. 

I don’t know if we’re numb, or tired, or just getting too old to muster a serious fight on these issues.  Or perhaps there are too many issues these days and we feel like there is only so much one can take on.

All of this brings me back to Greta and the concept of Han.  Greta pleaded that she doesn’t want us to feel hope.  But, if Greta didn’t have hope, she would not have traveled 32 hours by train to appeal for action and sanity on climate change.  I'm convinced it was her hope for change that brought her to the World Economic Summit.
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Greta – at 16 years old – seems to have learned how to live with the paradox of sadness and hope.  I hope we can learn from her example.  I hope that we can continue the fight on these and other critical issues of our time.  I hope.