For Gab Doller
Oh, you weak, beautiful people who give up with such grace. What you need is someone to take hold of you -- gently, with love, and hand your life back to you.
- Tennessee Williams, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"
Rest in peace, Gab Doller. My condolences to his family and his friends.
I find it disturbing and distressing that this is the third time I'm writing an entry of this kind this semester. When I try to make sense of it, I feel like I'm staring down a deep empty black hole that's not only outside but also within me. Everything's just sad and senseless at the same time. What exactly are we facing? Alienation? Hopelessness? (I also dislike the fact that I'm talking through metaphors, but I still haven't found the right words that could articulate what I'm thinking and feeling perfectly.)
I feel like ending this entry with another quotation. This was an interview done by one of my favorite people, Anna Deavere Smith. She interviewed a scholar named Cornel West for her play, Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992:
Hope and optimism are different. Optimism tends to be based on the notion that there's enough evidence out there that allows us to believe things are gonna be better, much more rational, deeply secular, whereas hope looks at the evidence and says, "It doesn't look good at all. It doesn't look good at all. Gonna go beyond the evidence to create new possibilities based on visions that become contagious to allow people to engage in heroic actions always against the odds, no guarantee whatsoever." That's hope. I'm a prisoner of hope though. Gonna die a prisoner of hope.
- Cornel West, scholar