Cope does qualify as a strategy, especially when hope refuses to spring. Copelessness might be the worse outcome, much worse than hopelessness ever could be. Hope seems so pull-myself-up-by-my-bootstraps-ish, so notional. The logic doesn’t work; not even Archimedes could find any leverage point there.

While it seems true that we are anything but rational beings, we seem also not un-rational, either, and as a steady, everyday diet, hope seems insubstantial, a sugary substitute for more solid sustenance.

How things should have been says nothing about anyone but me. Hope might have gotten me airborne, but to no purpose if I crash back to ground as soon as I lose a little self-supplied lift. I’m capable of gliding when I lose power, and can catch a thermal when I’m lucky. I have more choices available to me than Hope’s sparse pantry could ever supply.

Hopelessness might cue copefulness, and be more than a fair trade. No need to fear even the deepest hopelessness if I have a quiver filled with cope. The way it is might just be the way it is, no need to despair. How it turned out might be the foundation for what I just could not imagine yet, or am I merely inflating myself with hopeful hot air again?

Coping’s no peg-legged alternative, but a powerful switch. When I lose my wheels, I can always hitch.

©2012 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

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