On Hope

I was recently asked about what gives me hope when I don’t believe in religion or God. And this got me thinking.

Well, hope is a belief that you hold that the future will be better. It’s not bound by logic. At times, it’s also something that you create in your own mind. Whether it’s through God, religion or anything else, it doesn’t matter. Hope could spring from anywhere.

And as for me, hope lies in music. It lies in the feeling that music gives me. I’ve always used music as a crutch to make sense of challenging situations.

I remember when Covid first hit. Things were so uncertain and gloomy and I was mostly living by myself in Bangalore, away from family and friends. To cope, I took long nature walks and listened to what I now call my “pandemic playlist”. I connected deeply with the lyrics and the music to make sense of what I was going through at the time, and that experience gave me hope.

When I happen to listen to that pandemic playlist again, I get the same sense of hope. Hope that the future will first exist and be better. I often do that with music that has been uplifting in bad times, it continues to be uplifting in good times.

And I’m not saying music will solve my problems. Religious people feel that problems can be left to God to deal with. I know that I still have to still solve my own problems. But music makes it easier.

Hope doesn’t always burn brightly, but music helps give it the right conditions to continue glowing.