Hope from devastation
The musician Nick Cave has created a special connection with his fans through his Red Hand Files where he answers questions that come in from the community.
He shared one of the letters in an interview with Stephen Colbert on The Late Show after he’d confided that he’d lost his 15-year-old son in 2015.
The question was:
"Following the last few years I’m feeling empty and more cynical than ever. I’m losing faith in other people, and I’m scared to pass these feelings to my little son. Do you still believe in Us (human beings)?"
Cave answers…
“Much of my early life was spent holding the world and the people in it in contempt. It took a devastation to understand the idea of mortal value, and it took a devastation to find hope.
Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard-earned, makes demands upon us, and can often feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on Earth. Hopefulness is not a neutral position either. It is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism. Each redemptive or loving act, as small as you like, Valerio, such as reading to your little boy, or showing him a thing you love, or singing him a song, or putting on his shoes, keeps the devil down in the hole. It says the world and its inhabitants have value and are worth defending. It says the world is worth believing in. In time, we come to find that it is so.”
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