The H Word

Zeus mysteriously materialized in my life a few years ago. He's a very complex, wise-cracking, irreverent dog with some serious attitude. However, he is arguably the most highly evolved being I have ever encountered. His great delight is in turning my world (and yours) inside out and upside down, with the soul purpose of revealing forgotten knowledge. For example:

If you met Zeus, you'd no doubt agree that he's a remarkable being. He's brilliant, unexpectedly funny, and wise beyond comprehension—hardly astounding for someone from a dimension as far advanced beyond the human race as we are beyond a pile of sand. What gets me is how much he loves being a dog. Not to be disrespectful, but imagine an ascended master sniffing at hydrants and adding his markings to let future visitors know he'd been in the neighborhood.

At his request, I walk him on a 26-foot retractable lead, the longest I could find at the pet superstore. One evening, while watching him do his dog thing, I began replaying the world situation in my mind. Wars now involve nations on every continent. The environment is overwhelmed by a host of what seem irreversible challenges, new diseases are identified faster than the old ones are being cured. Starvation, hatred, religious fervor, political rhetoric . . . the situation appears hopeless.

"Good thing, if you ask me," Zeus said, shaking me out of my reverie.

"What's so good about the world falling apart?" I asked.

"Nothing. That's not so good. What is good is that you finally realize it's hopeless."

"What kind of nonsense is that? We're really in deep trouble," I protested. "Take away hope and we have nothing left."

"If all you have is hope, then you're well and truly over the edge," Zeus retorted. "Just because everyone agrees that something is good, don't assume it's true. Hope is a prime example. If you'd just wipe the sleep from your eyes, you'd see that hope is scraped together from the dregs at the bottom of the barrel. Rancid stuff!"

"What're you talking about? Why are you so down on hope?"

"Because it lulls people into thinking things will get better on their own. It passes the buck. It's a throwaway emotion that lets people feign concern without getting their hands dirty. Like, 'I hope you'll feel better soon. Bye.' Hope hardly resonates on the energy meter. It's a complete dud."

"I don't follow you, Zeus. Give me an example or two."

"How about a bunch of 'em?" Zeus replied. "Listen to these words. Forget their meaning, just focus on their levels of energy."

I closed my eyes and asked my mind to take a back seat for a few moments as Zeus began: "I hope . . . I await . . . I wish . . . I crave . . . I plead . . . I beg . . . I anticipate . . . I demand . . . I envision . . . I foresee . . . I project . . . I consider . . . I ascertain . . . I determine . . . I create . . . I manifest . . . I realize . . . I intuit . . . I know . . . I am.

"What did you notice as I progressed through the list?"

"The energy intensified with each new word," I said.

"And what about the degree of engagement each word implied?"

"Definitely more as you went along."

"Beginning to get the point?" Zeus asked. "With such a spectrum of choices for achieving change, from 'I hope' at the bottom all the way up to 'I am,' why do so many humans choose impotence almost every time?"

"Ouch," I winced. "That really lights up the situation with our political and religious leaders. All those messages of hope distance us from responsibility, like trying to support your family by buying a lottery ticket instead of going to work."

"It's far more insidious," Zeus said. "Hope is part of the preprogramming that keeps people locked in the illusion. To paraphrase Newton's third law: 'Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.' Using a low-voltage word like 'hope' pins you, and all you apply it to, to a powerless level of your being. Use it enough times and you'll get stuck. Then everything you really can do something about begins to look like too much to handle. You actually compound the problem every time you use the H word.

"It's a divine comedy, as Dante suggests. But his heavy investment in preconceived beliefs caused him to misread the sign on hell's door. It doesn't say 'Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.' It says, 'Enter here, ye who still cling to hope.'

"At the other extreme, can't you just hear it? On the seventh day God beheld the Heavens and the Earth, viewing all He had created and proclaimed, 'Gee, I hope this all works out.'

"And so my little leash-holder, when you notice the hopelessness of any situation, rejoice, for you have eliminated the least powerful option. Once you give up relying on the H word, you can roll up your sleeves and get to work.

"I'm actually glad we had this little chat, because you've been using that unfortunate term a lot lately. Quite unconsciously, mind you. But every time you mouth that word, you degrade yourself and everyone who hears it. Forget minding your P's and Q's," Zeus chided. "You've got more important letters to focus on. Besides, socially correct behavior merely buys you membership in the flock. And, if I may offer a Frosty reminder,