I appreciate how Rebecca Solnit differentiates between hope & optimism. I’ve been using a similar framework in my practice even pre-pandemic. The results have been striking. Optimism during crises often requires assuming a ‘fake it til you make it’ stance that crashes eventually.

The way Solnit stories this allows us to locate hope as we are actively trudging through the muck, large raindrops crashing down on our backs, rather than trying to pretend that we’re sitting peacefully at a sunny beach or soon will be.

The exercise is not to try and trick our brains into thinking everything is okay in a broken world. Rare is the instance where I’ve seen this work over the long-term. There is a messy and genuine hope to be found in meeting a fractured world where it is. Just ask our ancestors.