On the practice of cultivating hope in your creative journey

The importance of keeping hopeful in the face of setbacks and fear.

Photo by Artak Petrosyan on Unsplash

Hopefulness is not a neutral position — it is adversarial.
— Nick Cave

I had another post all written out instead of this one. I felt hopeful about what this week would bring. I wrote about the everyday concerns of my practice, as I generally do. But instead, things have gone very differently than I imagined and so, whatever else I might have planned to do or think about, there is now only one, overriding theme on my mind. That theme is hope.

I have always been a hopeful person. It is — quite literally — my middle name. My 12 year old self who chose that name to be Confirmed by had no idea what irony it would hit with, 20 years later. For many reasons that are hard to list here, the last few years of my life have been an onslaught of disillusionment. My personal, romantic, creative, social and political views have been challenged again and again. I know I’m not the only one. But none of us can live without hope. So, where do I find hope now?

I’ve seen people withdraw and batten down the hatches in the face of fear, rejection, setback and opposition. I get that. In the weeks before COVID took over all of our…