The island of lost hopes
Everyone knows this myth: there lived Pandora who for whatever reason opened a box - hence Pandora’s Box - and accidentally let out all the evils of the Earth (what were they doing there, really?), except one - Hope. Apparently, the Greeks were never fooled by modern self-help techniques and considered hope to be as dangerous as any other evil in the world. Moreover, they saw hope as a continuation of human suffering. Anyway, with all evils at large, humanity was desperate and clueless. Here’s how Hope came to play: Pandora decided to rethink her behavioural patterns and reopen the Box – to let Hope join the club at this point. It might be worth mentioning that in this story Hope is described as leaving the box quite reluctantly and slowly being, in fact, the most potent of the major evils.
There is some evidence to suggest that in difficult situations hope can be much worse than hopelessness. For example, criminals sentenced to life imprisonment have a better chance of adjustment to jail conditions if they are not eligible for parole. There’s a constant existential debate on hopelessness as an inability to construct someone’s future. It is believed that in order to construct a future, a person has to become aware of their mortality and be able to exercise their freedom. If these two important components are missing, a sense of “neurotic anxiety” is produced which leads to “inauthentic living” and depression.
One of the most popular existential philosophers, Friedrich Nietzsche, had once said this about hope: “Zeus did not want man to throw his life away, no matter how much the other evil might torment him, but rather to go on letting himself be tormented anew. To that end, he gives man hope. In truth, it is the most evil of evils because it prolongs man's torment.”
The point I’m trying to make, rather inarticulately, is that sometimes losing hope can be one of the best things that could happen to you. We are currently living in a world of a compulsive “never ever give up” approach which is just one of the possible many. Could we be wrong about this categorical attitude? Perhaps, one has to let it go, at least once in a while. For this image I used the famous Antonio Gaudi’s Roman Catholic Church of the Sagrada Familia because of its controversial surrealistic vision of an architectural homage to God.
(Title Rus) Остров Потерянных Надежд
Software media: Adobe Photoshop ®, Adobe Illustrator ®, Autodesk 3ds Max ®, Smith Micro Poser ®, Daz Studio ®, Bryce ®, Planetside Terragen ®, Photo Stock, Paint Shop Pro Photo ®, CorelDRAW Graphics ®, Painter X ®
George Grie, February 2009
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The island of lost hopes | surreal Gothic fantasy