One time, my four-year-old son, Max, wondered what hope meant. His mom turned the question back to him, "What do you think it means?" He thought for a moment then said, "It means you're afraid of something."

— Max Tran, Mar ’99.

More than prayers and formal enlistments of God, hope opens The Human Struggle's exploitation to people as well. Hope is, by nature, an indirect form of solicitation, not unlike asking and expecting in formal prayers.

When I hope that you come to visit, I place some burden on you. I'm effectively enlisting or calling on you. In response, you must think about my invitation and weigh it out with other competing factors in your life. I can hope for things, which can put quite a load on you, whether you choose to oblige. Similarly, anyone can put these types of burdens on anyone else.

People can, and do, hope for things from God. With God though, people are more presumptuous, for they might not ask explicitly. It's as if I just hope inside my of head, while relying on God to synchronize with my thoughts.

Not only does hope have great latitude, it has its own institution. In one representation or another, it's the institution of charity. People call it many different things, but charity is the primary function.

Have we an entire establishment designed to bandage people?

Don't get me wrong. Helping others under any name or circumstance is, in itself, a powerful virtue. I must question whether hope really helps.

Hope is a powerful motivator, yet it doesn't deter suffering from inflicting on both strong and weak people. Hope can be persistent, but it cannot make fortunate events more likely or certain to happen. A father hopes that his daughter arrives at home safely after a visit, but hope doesn't bring clear weather or produce a defensive driver.

The institution of hope is a worldwide establishment that is incapable of anything we discuss in this book. Still, "We give people hope," is what advocates customarily say. Granted, this establishment can manufacture hope in short notice; the stark reality is that it can't even keep up with the bandaging.

You must understand, I am not demeaning the humanitarian investment by the deliberate cooperation of individual kindness. I emphasize "individual" to underscore that while corporations contribute, I recognize that it happens because of "individual kindness," behind the corporate names. The world applauds individuals who cooperate to support others in need. The issue isn't with the people supporting this idea— but it's in the idea itself.

Our posterity will not judge us on intent but, rather, on the traditions and consequences we pass onto them.

A subtle question remains unexposed. How much of this bandaging is for wounds beyond physical care? Not only that hope cannot keep up with human circumstances, it's only treating relatively insignificant wounds. Maintain the good work definitely, but society must recognize it for what it really does for humankind.

Like a powerful opiate, hope soothes our anxieties over aspects of life that we don't control, and gives us temporary relief until we know of the outcomes. Until I know that I pass my examination, I can hope that I will. Until our daughter calls us when she gets home safely, we may hope that she does. For what else do we hope? What else may hope be for us?

Hope is a deteriorating condition of trust, yet many people have come to accept it as a measure of human power.

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