Hope and twenty-one pilots

A while ago, I read this fantastic blog post on LifeTeen:

http://lifeteen.com/blog/hope-doesnt-always-feel-good/

And it set me to thinking, as usual. It's something that had never occurred to me, that hope might not feel hopeful. That maybe I don't have to feel bubbly and happy to be hopeful. It's only been in the last couple years that I'm realizing emotions aren't as straightforward as they maybe ought to be. That maybe you can practice a virtue without feeling the virtue. That maybe you don't have to feel anything for it to be real. That maybe God withholds emotional reward as a test, a trial.

I've always been convinced that love is a choice and not a feeling. I think that also applies to hope, and probably a lot of other abstract ideas and emotions. I think hope is more of a gritty determination to cling to something than a floaty feeling. I think it maybe doesn't even fully feel like determination. I think hope is the subtlest abstract idea, sneaking in before you can realize you're being hopeful and then disappearing when you think you are hopeful. I think most of the time, it feels like nothing. After all, hope isn't wholeheartedly itself until you're hoping against the odds. And if you feel happy and hopeful, then how easy is it to hope?? Too easy. I have a strange conviction that things don't begin to honestly count until they're hard and begin to hurt. That may be hope, but if it is, it's a lesser hope, a not-quite-full hope. I heard somewhere that hope is the only thing that's stronger than fear. I'm not sure I agree with that, but I do think hope is too linked to fear to be just a happy feeling. As the linked blogpost says, "hope belongs in darkness".

I think hope is a conscious decision that fear is temporary, even if it doesn't feel temporary. Deciding that fear doesn't have to affect your life, take over and shove you aside. That you can out-wait it, outlive it, and come out at the end. That it can get inside your head but it can't get to your soul. Hope is recognizing the beauty in suffering. Hope is recognizing that even if life sucks, you can come out of it better. Hope is retaining yourself, your blind trust in God, through the stuff life throws at you. And I think most of the time, hope doesn't feel like anything, let alone something good.

In contemplating this, I realized the answer to a question I've long wondered: why do I like twenty-one pilots? They are absolutely unlike any of the music I usually like. They're loud, and bleak, and a little insane sometimes. They're not my moody indie coffeehouse music or cutesie ukulele love songs, even if their lyrics are genius and gorgeous. And I only listen to them in my worst moods.
I think it's because they're a little bit like hope. There is such a disconnect between what they say explicitly, what they say implicitly, and what they sound like. Not always in the same way. But they're always a conundrum. At first glance, they're depressing, and harsh, and a little insane. But lots of their music has hopeful undertones. Lots of "nothing's okay, but that's okay, it's not supposed to be, so hang in there until it is".

It doesn't feel hopeful. It doesn't look hopeful. It doesn't smell hopeful. But it is.